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THE  STORY  OP  THE 
ROME,    WATERTOWN    AND 
OGDENSBURGH  RAILROAD 


THE  STORY 

of  the 

Rome,  Watertown  and 
Ogdensburgh  Railroad 

By 
EDWARD  HUNGEBFORD 

AUTHOR  OP  "THE  MODERN   RAILROAD,"  "OuB 
RAILROADS — TOMORROW,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

ROBERT  M.  McBRIDE  &  COMPANY 

1922 


Copyright,      1922,      by 

EDWARD      HUNGERFORD 


Printed       in       the 
United     States     of     America 


Published,        1922 


To  THOSE  PIONEERS 

OF  OUR 
NORTH  COUNTRY 

WHO 

Labored  Hard  and  Labored  Well  In 
Order  That  It  Might  Enjoy  the 
Blessings  of  the  Railroad,  This 
Book  Is  Dedicated  by  Its  Author. 


519045 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

I    BY  WAY  OF  INTRODUCTION 1 

II    LOOKING  TOWARD  A  RAILROAD     ....  5 

III  THE  COMING  OF  THE  WATERTOWN  &  ROME  .  24 

IV  THE  POTSDAM  &  WATERTOWN  RAILROAD     .  59 
V    THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  R.  W.  &  0.  .     .     .  79 

VI    THE  R.  W.  &  0.  PROSPERS— AND  EXPANDS  .  102 

VII    INTO  THE  SLOUGH  OF  DESPOND    ....  128 

VIII    THE  UTICA  &  BLACK  RIVER 143 

IX    THE  BRISK  PARSONS'  REGIME      ....  171 

X    IN  WHICH  RAILROADS  MULTIPLY      .     .     .  203 

XI    THE  COMING  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  CENTRAL  .  227 

XII     THE  END  OF  THE  STORY 246 

APPENDIX  A 263 

APPENDIX  B                                                  .  267 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Fleet  Locomotive  Antwerp    .     .     .      Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Orville  Hungerford 31 

The  Cape  Vincent  Station 51 

Early  Railroad  Tickets 71 

Watertown  in  1865 81 

The  Birth  of  the  U.  &  B.  R 148 

Hiram  M.  Britton 186 

Snow  Fighters 231 


PREFACE 

railroads,  like  some  men,  experience 
many  of  the  ups  and  downs  of  life.  They 
have  their  seasons  of  high  prosperity,  as  well  as 
those  of  deep  depression.  Such  a  road  was  the 
Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh.  In  its  forty 
years  of  life  it  ran  a  full  gamut  of  railroad  exis- 
tence. Alternately  it  was  one  of  the  best  rail- 
roads in  creation ;  and  one  of  the  worst. 

The  author  within  these  pages  has  endeavored 
to  put  plain  fact  plainly.  He  has  written  without 
malice — if  anything,  he  still  feels  within  his  heart 
a  burst  of  warm  sentiment  for  the  old  R.  W.  &  0. 
— and  with  every  effort  toward  absolute  impar- 
tiality in  setting  down  these  events  that  now  are 
History.  He  bespeaks  for  his  little  book,  kind- 
ness, consideration,  even  forbearance.  And  looks 
forward  to  the  day  when  again  he  may  take  up 
his  pen  in  the  scribbling  of  another  narrative  such 
as  this.  It  has  been  a  task.  But  it  has  been  a 
task  of  real  fascination. 

E.  H. 


A  LIST  OF  THOSE  WHO  HAVE  ASSISTED  MATERIALLY 
IN  THE  PREPARATION  OF  THIS  BOOK 

RICHARD  C.  ELLSWORTH Canton 

HAROLD  B.  JOHNSON Watertown 

CORNELIUS  CHRISTIE Syracuse 

RICHARD  HOLDEN Watertown 

J.  F.  MAYNARD Utica 

DR.  CHARLES  H.  LEETE Potsdam 

W.  D.  HANCHETTE Watertown 

RICHARD  T.  STARSMEARE Kane,  Pa. 

W.  D.  CARNES Watertown 

ARTHUR  G.  LEONARD Chicago 

ROBERT  WARD  DAVIS Rochester 

GEORGE  W.  KNOWLTON Watertown 

L.  S.  HUNGERFORD Chicago 

HON.  CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW    ....  New  York 

ELISHA  B.  POWELL Oswego 

P.  E.  CROWLEY New  York 

IRA  A.  PLACE New  York 

F.  E.  McCoRMACK Corning 

EDGAR  VAN  ETTEN Los  Angeles 

D.  C.  MOON Cleveland 

JAMES  H.  HUSTIS Boston 

F.  W.  THOMPSON San  Francisco 

HENRY  N.  ROCKWELL Albany 

CHAS.  H.  HUNGERFORD Arlington,  Vt. 

CHARLES  HOLCOMBE Biloxi,  Miss. 


CHAPTER  I 

BY  WAY  OF  INTKODUCTION 

IN  the  late  summer  of  1836  the  locomotive  first 
reached  Utica  and  a  new  era  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Central  and  Northern  New  York  was  be- 
gun. 

For  forty  years  before  that  time,  however — in 
fact  ever  since  the  close  of  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lution— there  had  been  a  steady  and  increasing 
trek  of  settlers  into  the  heart  of  what  was  soon 
destined  to  become  the  richest  as  well  as  the  most 
populous  state  of  the  Union.  But  its  develop- 
ment was  constantly  retarded  by  the  lack  of  proper 
transportation  facilities.  For  while  the  valley 
of  the  Mohawk,  the  gradual  portage  just  west 
of  Rome  and  the  way  down  to  Oswego  and  Lake 
Ontario  through  Oneida  Lake  and  its  emptying 
waterways,  formed  the  one  natural  passage  in  the 
whole  United  States  of  that  day  from  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  to  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  little-known 
country  beyond,  it  was  by  no  means  an  easy  path- 
way. Not  even  after  the  Western  Inland  Lock 

i 


2  The  Stoiy  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Navigation  Company  had  builded  its  first  crude 
masonry  locks  in  the  narrow  natural  impasse  at 
Little  Falls,  so  that  the  bateaux  of  the  early  set- 
tlers, which  made  the  rest  of  the  route  in  com- 
parative ease,  might  pass  through  its  one  very 
difficult  bottle-neck. 

It  was  not  until  the  coming  of  the  Erie  Canal, 
there  in  the  second  decade  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, that  the  route  into  the  heart  of  New  York 
from  tidewater  at  Albany,  was  rendered  a  reason- 
ably safe  and  (for  that  day)  comfortable  affair. 
With  the  completion  of  the  Erie  Canal,  in  1827, 
there  was  immediately  inaugurated  a  fleet  of 
packet-boats;  extremely  swift  in  their  day  and 
generation  and  famed  for  many  a  day  thereafter 
for  their  comfortable  cabins  and  the  excellence  of 
their  meals. 

But  the  comfort  of  these  ancient  craft  should 
not  be  overrated.  At  the  best  they  were  but  slow 
affairs  indeed,  taking  three  days  to  come  from 
Albany,  where  they  connected  with  the  early 
steamboats  upon  the  Hudson,  up  to  Utica.  And 
at  the  best  they  might  operate  but  seven  or  eight 
months  out  of  the  year.  The  rest  of  the  twelve- 
month, the  unlucky  wight  of  a  traveler  must  needs 
have  recourse  to  a  horse-drawn  coach. 

These  selfsame  coaches  were  not  to  be  scoffed 
at,  however.  Across  the  central  portion  of  New 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  3 

York ;  by  relays  all  the  way  from  Albany  to  Black 
Rock  or  Buffalo,  they  made  a  swift  passage  of  it. 
And  up  into  the  great  and  little  known  North 
Country  they  sometimes  made  exceeding  speed. 
That  country  had  received  its  first  artificial  path- 
ways at  the  time  of  the  coming  of  the  Second  War 
with  England,  when  it  was  thrust  into  a  sudden 
and  great  strategic  importance.  With  the  direct 
result  that  important  permanent  highroads  were 
at  once  constructed ;  from  Utica  north  to  the  Black 
River  country,  down  the  water-shed  of  that  stream, 
and  through  Watertown  to  Sackett's  Harbor;  and 
from  Sackett's  Harbor  through  Brownville — the 
county  seat  and  for  a  time  the  military  head- 
quarters of  General  Jacob  Brown — north  to 
Ogdensburgh,  thence  east  along  the  Canada  line 
to  Plattsburgh  upon  Lake  Champlain. 

These  military  roads  still  remain.  And  beside 
them  traces  of  their  erstwhile  glory.  Usually 
these  last  in  the  form  of  ancient  taverns — most 
often  built  of  limestone,  the  stone  whitened  to  a 
marblelike  color  by  the  passing  of  a  hundred 
years,  save  where  loving  vines  and  ivy  have  clam- 
bered over  their  surfaces.  You  may  see  them  to- 
day all  the  way  from  Utica  to  Sackett's  Harbor; 
and,  in  turn,  from  Sackett's  Harbor  north  and 
east  to  Plattsburgh  once  again.  But  none  more 
sad  nor  more  melancholy  than  at  Martinsburgh ; 


4  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

once  in  her  pride  the  shire-town  of  the  county  of 
Lewis,  but  now  a  mere  hamlet  of  a  few  fine  old 
homes  and  crumbling  warehouses.  A  great  fire  in 
the  early  fifties  ended  the  ambitions  of  Mar- 
tinsburgh — in  a  single  short  hour  destroyed  it  al- 
most totally.  And  made  its  hated  rival  Low- 
ville,  two  miles  to  its  north,  the  county  seat  and 
chief  village  of  the  vicinage. 

There  was  much  in  this  North  Road  to  remind 
one  of  its  prototype,  the  Great  North  Road,  which 
ran  and  still  runs  from  London  to  York,  far  over- 
seas. A  something  in  its  relative  importance  that 
helps  to  make  the  parallel.  Whilst  even  the  fa- 
mous four-in-hands  of  its  English  predecessor 
might  hardly  hope  to  do  better  than  was  done  on 
this  early  road  of  our  own  North  Country.  It  is 
a  matter  of  record  that  on  February  19,  1829,  and 
with  a  level  fall  of  thirty  inches  of  snow  upon  the 
road,  the  mailstage  went  from  Utica  to  Sackett's 
Harbor,  ninety-three  miles,  in  nine  hours  and 
forty-five  minutes,  including  thirty-nine  minutes 
for  stops,  horse  relays  and  the  like.  Which  would 
not  be  bad  time  with  a  motor  car  this  day. 


CHAPTER  II 

LOOKING  TOWARD  A  RAILROAD 

THE  locomotive  having  reached  Utica — upon 
the  completion  of  the  Utica  &  Schenectady 
Railroad,  August  2,  1836 — was  not  to  be  long  con- 
tent to  make  that  his  western  stopping  point. 
The  fever  of  railroad  building  was  upon  Central 
New  York.  Railroads  it  must  have ;  railroads  it 
would  have.  But  railroad  building  was  not  the 
quick  and  comparatively  simple  thing  then  that  it 
is  to-day.  And  it  was  not  until  nearly  four  years 
after  he  had  first  poked  his  head  into  Utica  that 
the  iron  horse  first  thrust  his  nose  into  Syracuse, 
fifty-three  miles  further  west.  In  fact  the  rail- 
road from  this  last  point  to  Auburn  already  had 
been  completed  more  than  a  twelvemonth  and  but 
fifteen  months  later  trains  would  be  running  all 
the  way  from  Syracuse  to  Rochester;  with  but  a 
single  change  of  cars,  at  Auburn. 

Upon  the  heels  of  this  pioneer  chain  of  rail- 
roads— a  little  later  to  achieve  distinction  as  the 


6  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

New  York  Central — came  the  building  of  a  rail- 
road to  the  highly  prosperous  Lake  Ontario  port 
of  Oswego — the  earliest  of  all  white  settlements 
upon  the  Great  Lakes. 

At  first  it  was  planned  that  this  railroad  to  the 
shores  of  Ontario  should  deflect  from  the  Utica 
&  Syracuse  Railroad — whose  completion  had  fol- 
lowed so  closely  upon  the  heels  of  the  line  between 
Schenectady  and  Utica — near  Rome,  and  after 
crossing  Wood  Creek  and  Fish  Creek,  should  fol- 
low the  north  shore  of  Oneida  Lake  and  then 
down  the  valley  of  the  Oswego  River.  Oswego  is 
but  185  miles  from  Lewiston  by  water  and  it  was 
then  estimated  that  it  could  be  reached  in  twenty- 
four  or  twenty-five  hours  from  New  York  by  this 
combined  rail  and  water  route. 

Eventually  however  the  pioneer  line  to  Oswego 
was  built  out  of  Syracuse,  known  at  first  as  the 
Oswego  and  Syracuse  Railroad;  it  afterwards  be- 
came a  part  of  the  Syracuse,  Binghamton  and 
New  York  and  as  a  part  of  that  line  eventually 
was  merged,  in  1872,  into  the  Delaware,  Lacka- 
wanna  &  Western  Railroad,  which  continues  to 
operate  it.  This  line  of  road  led  from  the  origi- 
nal Syracuse  station,  between  Salina  and  Warren 
Streets  straight  to  the  waterside  at  Oswego  har- 
bor. There  it  made  several  boat  connections ;  the 
most  important  of  these,  the  fleet  of  mail  and  pas- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  7 

senger  craft  operated  by  the  one-time  Ontario  & 
St.  Lawrence  Steamboat  Company. 

The  steamers  of  this  once  famous  line  played 
no  small  part  in  the  development  of  the  North 
Country.  They  operated  through  six  or  seven 
months  of  the  year,  as  a  direct  service  between 
Lewiston  which  had  at  that  time  highway  and 
then  later  rail  connection  with  Niagara  Falls  and 
Buffalo,  through  Ogdensburgh,  toward  which,  as 
we  shall  see  in  good  time,  the  Northern  Railroad 
was  being  builded,  close  to  the  Canada  line  from 
Lake  Champlain  and  the  Central  Vermont  Rail- 
road at  St.  Albans  as  an  outlet  between  Northern 
New  England  and  the  water-borne  traffic  of  the 
Great  Lakes.  The  steamers  of  this  line,  whose 
names,  as  well  as  the  names  of  their  captains, 
were  once  household  words  in  the  North  Country 
were: 

Northerner Captain  R.  F.  Child 

Ontario "  H.  N.  Throop 

Bay  State "  J.  Van  Cleve 

New  York "  

Cataract "  R.  B.  Chapman 

British  Queen "  Laflamme 

British  Empire "  Moody 

The  first  four  of  these  steamers,  each  flying  the 
American  flag,  were  deservedly  the  best  known  of 
the  fleet.  The  Ontario,  the  Bay  State  and  the 


8  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

New  York  were  built  at  French  Creek  upon  the 
St.  Lawrence  (now  Clayton)  by  John  Oakes;  the 
Northerner  was  Oswego-built.  They  burned  wood 
in  the  beginning,  and  averaged  about  230  feet  in 
length  and  about  900  tons  burthen.  There  were 
in  the  fleet  one  or  two  other  less  consequential 
boats,  among  them  the  Rochester,  which  plied  be- 
tween Lewiston  and  Hamilton,  in  the  then  Canada 
West,  as  a  connecting  steamer  with  the  main  line. 
The  steamer  Niagara,  Captain  A.  D.  Kilby,  left 
Oswego  each  Monday,  Wednesday  and  Friday 
evening  at  eight,  passing  Rochester  the  next 
morning  and  arriving  at  Toronto  at  four  p.  m. 
Returning  she  would  leave  Toronto  on  the  alter- 
nating days  at  8 :00  p.  m.,  pass  Rochester  at  5 :30 
a.  m.  and  arrive  at  Oswego  at  10 :00  a.  m.,  in  full 
time  to  connect  with  the  Oswego  &  Syracuse  R.  R. 
train  for  Syracuse,  and  by  connection,  to  Al- 
bany and  the  Hudson  River  steamers  for  New 
York.  A  little  later  Captain  John  S.  Warner, 
of  Henderson  Harbor,  was  the  Master  of  the 
Niagara. 

The  "line  boats, "  as  the  larger  craft  were 
known,  also  connected  with  these  through  trains. 
In  the  morning  they  did  not  depart  until  after  the 
arrival  of  the  train  from  Syracuse.  In  detail 
their  schedule  by  1850  was  as  follows : 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  9 

Lv.  Lewiston     .      .      .     4  p.m.      Lv.  Montreal     ...     9  a.m. 


"  Rochester  ...  10  p.m. 
"  Oswego  ...  9  a.m. 
"  Sackett's  Harbor  .12  m. 
"  Ogdensburgh  .  .  7  a.m. 
Ar.  Montreal  .  .  .  6  p.m. 


Ogdensburgh     .      .  8  a.m. 

Kingston      ...  4  p.m. 

Sackett's  Harbor  .  9  p.m. 

Oswego  ....  10  a.m. 

Rochester     .      .      .  6  p.m. 

Ar.  Lewiston  4  a.m. 


Here  for  many  years,  before  the  coming  of  the 
railroad,  was  an  agreeable  way  of  travel  into 
Northern  New  York.  These  steamers,  even  with 
thirty  foot  paddle-wheels,  were  not  fast;  on  the 
contrary  they  were  extremely  slow.  Neither  were 
they  gaudy  craft,  as  one  might  find  in  other  parts 
of  the  land.  But  their  rates  of  fare  were  very 
low  and  their  meals,  which  like  the  berths,  were  in- 
cluded in  the  cost  of  the  passage  ticket,  had  a  wide 
reputation  for  excellence.  Until  the  coming  of 
the  railroad  into  Northern  New  York,  the  line 
prospered  exceedingly.  Indeed,  for  a  consider- 
able time  thereafter  it  endeavored  to  compete 
against  the  railroad — but  with  a  sense  of  growing 
hopelessness.  And  eventually  these  once  famous 
steamers  having  grown  both  old  and  obsolete,  the 
line  was  abandoned. 

A  rival  line  upon  the  north  edge  of  Lake  On- 
tario, the  Eichelieu  &  Ontario,  continued  to  pros- 
per for  many  years,  however,  after  the  coming  of 
the  railroad.  Its  steamers — the  Corsican,  the 


10  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Caspian,  the  Algerian,  the  Spartan,  the  Corin- 
thian and  the  Passport  best  known,  perhaps, 
amongst  them — ran  from  Hamilton,  touching  at 
Toronto,  Kingston,  Clayton,  Alexandria  Bay, 
Prescott  and  Cornwall,  through  to  Montreal, 
where  connections  were  made  in  turn  for  lower 
river  ports.  The  last  of  these  boats  continued  in 
operation  upon  the  St.  Lawrence  until  within 
twenty  years  or  thereabouts  ago. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  completion  in  1829 
of  the  first  Welland  Canal  began  to  turn  a  really 
huge  tide  of  traffic  from  Lake  Erie  into  Lake 
Ontario,  and  for  two  decades  this  steadily  in- 
creased. In  1850  Ontario  bore  some  400,000  tons 
of  freight  upon  its  bosom,  yet  in  the  following 
year  this  had  increased  to  nearly  700,000  tons, 
valued  at  more  than  thirty  millions  of  dollars. 
In  1853  a  tonnage  mark  of  more  than  a  million 
was  passed  and  the  Lake  then  achieved  an  activity 
that  it  has  not  known  since.  In  that  year  the 
Watertown  &  Borne  Railroad  began  its  really  ac- 
tive operations  and  the  traffic  of  Ontario  to 
dwindle  in  consequence.  Whilst  the  cross-St. 
Lawrence  ferry  at  Cape  Vincent,  the  first  north- 
ern terminal  of  the  Rome  road,  began  to  as- 
sume an  importance  that  it  was  not  to  lose  for 
nearly  forty  years. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  11 

Steamboat  travel  was  hardly  to  be  relied  upon 
in  a  country  which  suffers  so  rigorous  a  winter  cli- 
mate as  that  of  Northern  New  York.  And  high- 
way travel  in  the  bitter  months  between  November 
and  April  was  hardly  better.  A  railroad  was  the 
thing;  and  a  railroad  the  North  Country  must 
have.  The  agitation  grew  for  a  direct  line  at 
least  between  Watertown,  already  coming  into 
importance  as  a  manufacturing  center  of  much 
diversity  of  product,  to  the  Erie  Canal  and  the 
chain  of  separate  growing  railroads,  that  by  the 
end  of  1844,  stretched  as  a  continuous  line  of  rails 
all  the  way  from  Albany — and  by  way  of  the 
Western  and  the  Boston  &  Worcester  Railroads 
(to-day  the  Boston  and  Albany)  all  the  way  from 
Boston  itself — to  Buffalo  and  Niagara  Falls. 
Prosperity  already  was  upon  the  North  Country. 
It  was  laying  the  foundations  of  its  future  wealth. 
It  was  ordained  that  a  railroad  should  be  given  it. 
The  problem  was  just  how  and  where  that  rail- 
road should  be  built.  After  a  brief  but  bitter 
fight  between  Rome  and  Utica  for  the  honor  of 
being  the  chief  terminal  of  this  railroad  up  into 
the  North  Country,  Rome  was  chosen ;  as  far  back 
as  1832.  Yet  it  was  not  until  sixteen  years  later 
that  the  construction  of  the  Watertown  &  Rome 
Railroad,  the  pioneer  road  of  Northern  New  York, 
was  actually  begun.  And  had  been  preceded  by 


12  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

a  mighty  and  almost  continuous  legislative  battle 
in  the  old  Capitol  at  Albany  ...  of  which  more 
in  another  chapter. 

In  the  meantime  other  railroads  had  been  pro- 
jected into  the  North  Country.  The  real  pioneer 
among  all  of  these  was  the  Northern  Railroad, 
which  was  projected  to  run  due  west  from  Rouse's 
Point  to  Ogdensburgh,  just  above  the  head  of  the 
highest  of  the  rapids  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  so 
at  that  time  at  the  foot  of  the  easy  navigation  of 
Ontario,  and,  by  way  of  the  Welland  Canal,  of 
the  entire  chain  of  Great  Lakes. 

The  preliminary  discussions  which  finally  led  to 
the  construction  of  this  important  early  line  also 
went  as  far  back  as  1829.  Finally  a  meeting  was 
called  (at  Montpelier,  Vt.,  on  February  17,  1830) 
to  seriously  consider  the  building  of  a  railroad 
across  the  Northern  Tier  of  New  York  counties, 
from  Rouse's  Point,  upon  Lake  Champlain,  to 
Ogdensburgh,  upon  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  pro- 
moters of  the  plan  averred  that  trains  might  be 
operated  over  the  proposed  line  at  fifteen  miles 
an  hour,  that  the  entire  journey  from  Boston  to 
Ogdensburgh  might  be  accomplished  in  thirty-five 
hours.  There  were,  of  course,  many  wise  men 
who  shook  their  heads  at  the  rashness  of  such 
prediction.  But  the  idea  fascinated  them  none 
the  less;  and  twenty-eight  days  later  a  similar 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  13 

meeting  to  that  at  Montpelier  was  held  at  Ogdens- 
burgh, to  be  followed  a  year  later  by  one  at 
Malone. 

So  was  the  idea  born.  It  grew,  although  very 
slowly.  Communication  itself  in  the  North  Coun- 
try was  slow  in  those  days,  even  though  the  fine 
military  road  from  Sackett's  Harbor  through  Og- 
densburgh to  Plattsburgh  was  a  tolerable  artery 
of  travel  most  of  the  year.  Money  also  was  slow. 
And  men,  over  enterprises  so  extremely  new  and 
so  untried  as  railroads,  most  diffident.  For  it 
must  be  remembered  that  when  the  promoters  of 
the  Northern  Railroad  first  made  that  outrageous 
promise  of  going  from  Boston  to  Ogdensburgh  in 
thirty-five  hours,  at  fifteen  miles  an  hour,  the  rail- 
road in  the  United  States  was  barely  born.  The 
first  locomotive — the  Stourbridge  Lion,  at  Hones- 
dale,  Penn. — had  been  operated  less  than  a  twelve- 
month before.  In  the  entire  United  States  there 
were  less  than  twenty-three  miles  of  railroad  in 
operation.  So  wonder  it  not  that  the  plan  for 
the  Northern  Railroad  grew  very  slowly  indeed; 
that  it  did  not  reach  incorporation  until  fourteen 
long  years  afterward,  when  the  Legislature  of 
New  York  authorized  David  C.  Judson  and 
Joseph  Barnes,  of  St.  Lawrence  County,  S.  C. 
Wead,  of  Franklin  County  and  others  as  commis- 
sioners to  receive  and  distribute  stock  of  the 


14  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Northern  Kailroad;  $2,000,000  all  told,  divided 
into  shares  of  $50  each.  The  date  of  the  formal 
incorporation  of  the  road  was  May  14,  1845.  Its 
organization  was  not  accomplished,  however,  until 
June,  1845,  when  the  first  meeting  was  held  in  the 
then  village  of  Ogdensburgh,  and  the  following 
officers  elected : 

President,  GEORGE  PARISH,  Ogdensburgh 

Treasurer,  S.  S.  WALLET 

Secretary,  JAMES  G.  HOPKINS 

Chief  Engineer,  COL.  CHARLES  L.  SCHLATTEB 

Directors 

J.  Leslie  Russell,  Canton  Anthony  C.  Brown,  Ogdensburgh 

Charles  Paine,  Northfield,  Vt.  Isaac  Spalding,  Nashua,  N.  H. 

Hiram  Horton,  Malone  Lawrence  Myers,  Plattshurgh 

S.  F.  Belknap,  Windsor,  Vt.  Abbot  Lawrence,  Boston 

J.  Wiley  Edmonds,  Boston  T.  P.  Chandler,  Boston 

Benjamin  Reed,  Boston  S.  S.  Lewis,  Boston 

Soon  after  the  organization  of  the  company, 
T.  P.  Chandler  succeeded  Mr.  Parish  (who  was 
for  many  years  easily  the  most  prominent  citizen 
of  Ogdensburgh)  as  President,  and  steps  were 
taken  toward  the  immediate  construction  of  the 
line.  After  the  inevitable  preliminary  conten- 
tions as  to  the  exact  route  to  be  followed,  James 
Hayward  made  the  complete  surveys  of  the  line 
as  it  exists  at  present,  while  Colonel  Schlatter,  its 
chief  engineer  and  for  a  number  of  years  its 
superintendent  as  well,  prepared  to  build  it.  Ac- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  15 

tual  construction  was  begun  in  March,  1848,  in  the 
deep  cutting  just  east  of  Ogdensburgh.  At  the 
same  time  grading  and  the  laying  of  rail  began 
at  the  east  end  of  the  road — at  Rouse's  Point  at 
the  foot  of  Lake  Champlain — with  the  result  that 
in  the  fall  of  1848  trains  were  in  regular  opera- 
tion between  Rouse's  Point  and  Centreville.  A 
year  later  the  road  had  been  extended  to  Ellen- 
burgh  ;  in  June,  1850,  to  Chateaugay.  On  October 
1,  1850,  trains  ran  into  Malone.  A  month  later  it 
was  finished  and  open  for  its  entire  length  of  117 
miles.  Its  cost,  including  its  equipment  and  fix- 
tures, was  then  placed  at  $5,022,121.31. 

It  is  not  within  the  province  of  this  little  book 
to  set  down  in  detail  the  somewhat  checkered 
career  of  the  Northern  Eailroad.  It  started  with 
large  ambitions — even  before  its  incorporation, 
James  G.  Hopkins,  who  afterwards  became  its 
Secretary,  traveled  through  the  Northern  Tier 
and  expatiated  upon  its  future  possibilities  in  a 
widely  circulated  little  pamphlet.  It  was  a  road 
builded  for  a  large  traffic.  So  sure  were  its  pro- 
moters of  this  forthcoming  business  that  they 
placed  its  track  upon  the  side  of  the  right-of-way, 
rather  than  in  the  middle  of  it,  in  order  that  it 
would  not  have  to  be  moved  when  it  came  time  to 
double-track  the  road. 


16  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

The  road  was  never  double-tracked.  For  some 
years  it  prospered — very  well.  It  made  a  direct 
connection  between  the  large  lake  steamers  at 
the  foot  of  navigation  at  Ogdensburgh — it  will 
be  remembered  that  Ogdensburgh  is  just  above 
the  swift-running  and  always  dangerous  rapids  of 
the  St.  Lawrence — and  the  important  port  of  Bos- 
ton. The  completion  of  the  line  was  followed  al- 
most immediately  by  the  construction  of  a  long 
bridge  across  the  foot  of  Lake  Champlain  which 
brought  it  into  direct  connection  with  the  rails  of 
the  Central  Vermont  at  St.  Albans — and  so  in  ac- 
tive touch  with  all  of  the  New  England  lines. 

The  ambitious  hopes  of  the  promoters  of  the 
Northern  took  shape  not  only  in  the  construction 
of  the  stone  shops  and  the  large  covered  depot  at 
Malone  (built  in  1850  by  W.  A.  Wheeler— after- 
wards not  only  President  of  the  property,  but 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States — it  still  stands 
in  active  service)  but  in  the  building  of  4000  feet 
of  wharfage  and  elaborate  warehouses  and  other 
terminal  structures  upon  the  river  bank  at 
Ogdensburgh.  The  most  of  these  also  still  stand 
— memorials  of  the  large  scale  upon  which  the 
road  originally  was  designed. 

Gradually,  however,  its  strength  faded.  Other 
rail  routes,  more  direct  and  otherwise  more  ad- 
vantageous, came  to  combat  it.  Fewer  and  still 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  17 

fewer  steamers  came  to  its  Ogdensburgh  docks — 
at  the  best  it  was  a  seasonal  business;  the  St. 
Lawrence  is  thoroughly  frozen  and  out  of  use  for 
about  five  months  out  of  each  year.  The  steamers 
of  the  upper  Lakes  outgrew  in  size  the  locks  of  the 
Welland  Canal  and  so  made  for  Buffalo — in  in- 
creasing numbers.  The  Northern  Railroad  en- 
tered upon  difficulties,  to  put  it  mildly.  It  was 
reorganized  and  reorganized;  it  became  the 
Ogdensburgh  Eailroad,  then  the  Ogdensburgh  & 
Lake  Champlain,  then  a  branch  of  the  Central 
Vermont  and  then  upon  the  partial  dismember- 
ment of  that  historic  property,  a  branch  of  the 
Eutland  Eailroad.  As  such  it  still  continues 
with  a  moderate  degree  of  success.  In  any  narra- 
tive of  the  development  of  transport  in  the  North 
Country  it  must  be  forever  regarded,  however,  as 
a  genuine  pioneer  among  its  railroads. 

One  other  route  was  seriously  projected  from 
the  eastern  end  of  the  state  into  the  North  Coun- 
try— the  Sackett's  Harbor  and  Saratoga  Eailroad 
Co.  which  was  chartered  April  10,  1848.  After 
desperate  efforts  to  build  a  railroad  through  the 
vast  fastnesses  of  the  North  Woods — then  a  terra 
incognito,  almost  impenetrable — and  the  expendi- 
ture of  very  considerable  sums  of  money,  both  in 
surveys  and  in  actual  construction,  this  enterprise 


18  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

was  finally  abandoned.  Yet  one  to-day  can  still 
see  traces  of  it  across  the  forest.  In  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Beaver  Falls,  they  become  most  defi- 
nite; a  long  cutting  and  an  embankment  reaching 
from  it,  a  melancholy  reminder  of  a  mighty  human 
endeavor  of  just  seventy  years  ago.  If  this 
route  had  ever  been  completed,  Watertown  to-day 
would  enjoy  direct  rail  communication  with  Bos- 
ton, although  not  reaching  within  a  dozen  miles  of 
Albany.  The  Fitchburg,  which  always  sought, 
but  vainly,  to  make  itself  an  effective  competitor 
of  the  powerful  Boston  &  Albany,  built  itself 
through  to  Saratoga  Springs,  largely  in  hopes 
that  some  day  the  line  through  the  forest  to  Sac- 
kett  's  Harbor  would  be  completed.  It  was  a  vain 
hope.  The  faintest  chance  of  that  line  ever  be- 
ing built  was  quite  gone.  A  quarter  of  a  century 
later  the  Fitchburg  thrust  another  branch  off 
from  its  Saratoga  line  to  reach  the  ambitious  new 
West  Shore  at  Rotterdam  Junction.  That  hope 
also  faded.  And  the  Fitchburg,  now  an  important 
division  of  the  Boston  &  Maine,  despite  its  direct 
route  and  short  mileage  through  the  Hoosac  Tun- 
nel, became  forever  a  secondary  route  across  the 
state  of  Massachusetts. 

The  reports  of  the  prospecting  parties  of  the 
Sackett's  Harbor  &  Saratoga  form  a  pleasing  pic- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  19 

ture  of  the  Northern  New  York  at  the  beginning 
of  the  fifties.  The  company  had  been  definitely 
formed  with  its  chief  offices  at  80  Wall  Street, 
New  York,  and  the  following  officers  and  direc- 
tors: 

President,  WILLIAM  COVENTRY  H.  WADDELL,  New  York 

Supt.  of  Operations,  GEN.  S.  P.  LYMAN,  New  York 

Treasurer,  HENRY  STANTON,  New  York 

Secretary,  SAMUEL  ELLIS,  Boston 

Counsel,  SAMUEL  BEARDSLEY,  Utica 

Consulting  Engineer,  JOHN  B.  MILLS,  New  York 

Directors 

Charles  E.  Clarke,  Great  Bend  P.  Somerville  Stewart,  Carthage 

Lyman  R.  Lyon,  Lyons  Falls  E.  G.  Merrick,  French  Creek 

Robert  Speir,  West  Milton  James  M.  Marvin,  Saratoga 

John  R.  Thurman,  Chester  Anson  Thomas,  Utica 

Zadock  Pratt,  Prattsville  Otis  Clapp,  Boston 

Wm.  Coventry  H.  Waddell,  Gen.  S.  P.  Lyman,  Utica 

New  York  Henry  Stanton,  New  York 

Mr.  A.  F.  Edwards  received  his  appointment  as 
Chief  Engineer  of  the  company  on  March  10, 1852, 
and  soon  afterwards  entered  upon  a  detailed  re- 
connoissance  of  the  territory  embraced  within  its 
charter.  He  examined  closely  into  its  mineral 
and  timber  resources  and  gave  great  attention  to 
its  future  agricultural  and  industrial  possibilities. 
In  the  early  part  of  his  report  he  says : 

"In  the  latter  part  of  September,  1852,  I  left 
Saratoga  for  the  Backet  (Racquette)  Lake,  via 
Utica.  On  my  way  I  noticed  on  the  Mohawk  that 


20  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

there  had  been  frost,  and  as  I  rode  along  in  the 
stage  from  Utica  to  Boonville,  I  saw  that  the  frost 
had  bitten  quite  sharply  the  squash  vines  and  the 
potatoes,  the  leaves  having  become  quite  black; 
but  judge  my  surprise,  when  three  days  later  on 
visiting  the  settlement  of  the  Racket,  I  found  the 
beans,  cucumber  vines,  potatoes,  &c.,  as  fresh  as 
in  midsummer. " 

His  examination  of  the  territory  completed,  Mr. 
Edwards  began  the  rough  location  of  the  line  of 
the  new  railroad.  From  Saratoga  it  passed  west- 
erly to  the  valley  of  the  Kayaderosseras,  in  the 
town  of  Greenfield,  thence  north  through  Green- 
field Center,  South  Corinth  and  through  the 
"  Antonio  Notch "  in  the  town  of  Corinth  to  the 
Sacondaga  valley,  up  which  it  proceeded  to  the 
village  of  Conklingville,  easterly  through  Hunts- 
ville  and  Northville,  through  the  town  of  Hope  to 
"the  Forks. "  From  there  it  went  up  the  east 
branch  of  the  Sacondaga,  through  Wells  and  Gil- 
man  to  the  isolated  town  of  Lake  Pleasant. 
Spruce  Lake  and  the  headwaters  of  the  Canada 
Creek  were  threaded  to  the  summit  of  the  line  at 
the  Canada  Lakes.  The  middle  and  the  western 
branches  of  the  Moose  River  were  passed  near 
Old  Forge  and  the  line  descended  the  Otter  Creek 
valley,  crossing  the  Independence  River  and  down 
the  Crystal  Creek  through  and  near  Dayansville 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  21 

and  Beaver  Falls  to  Carthage  where  for  the  first 
time  it  would  touch  the  Black  River. 

From  Carthage  to  Watertown  it  was  planned 
that  it  would  closely  follow  the  Black  River  val- 
ley, crossing  the  river  three  times,  and  leaving  it 
at  Watertown  for  a  straight  run  across  the  flats 
to  Sackett's  Harbor;  along  the  route  of  the  al- 
ready abandoned  canal  which  Elisha  Camp  and  a 
group  of  associates  had  builded  in  1822  and 
had  left  to  its  fate  in  1832;  in  fact  almost  pre- 
cisely upon  the  line  of  the  present  Sackett's 
Harbor  branch  of  the  New  York  Central.  At 
the  Harbor  great  terminal  developments  were 
planned;  an  inner  harbor  in  the  village  and  an 
outer  one  of  considerable  magnitude  at  Horse  Is- 
land. 

From  Carthage  a  branch  line  was  projected  to 
French  Creek,  now  the  busy  summer  village  of 
Clayton.  The  route  was  to  diverge  from  the  main 
line  about  one  mile  west  of  Great  Bend  thence 
running  in  a  tangent  to  the  Indian  River,  about  a 
mile  and  one-half  east  of  Evan's  Mills,  where 
after  crossing  that  stream  upon  a  bridge  of  two 
spans  and  at  a  height  of  sixty  feet  would  recross 
it  two  miles  further  on  and  then  run  in  an  almost 
straight  line  to  Clayton.  Here  a  very  elaborate 
harbor  improvement  was  planned,  with  a  loop 
track  and  almost  continuous  docks  to  encircle  the 


22  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

compact  peninsula  upon  which  the  village  is  built. 

"At  French  Creek  on  a  clear  day,"  says  Mr. 
Edwards,  "the  roofs  of  the  buildings  at  Kingston, 
across  the  St.  Lawrence,  can  be  seen  with  the 
naked  eye.  All  the  steamers  and  sail  vessels,  up 
and  down  the  river  and  lake,  pass  this  place  and 
when  the  Grand  Trunk  Railroad  is  completed,  it 
will  be  as  convenient  a  point  as  can  be  found  to 
connect  with  the  same." 

All  the  while  he  waxes  most  enthusiastic  about 
the  future  possibilities  of  Northern  New  York, 
particularly  the  westerly  counties  of  it.  He  calls 
attention  to  the  thriving  villages  of  Turin,  Mar- 
tinsburgh,  Lowville,  Denmark,  Lyonsdale  (I  am 
leaving  the  older  names  as  he  gives  them  in  his 
report)  and  Dayansville,  in  the  Black  River 
valley. 

"In  the  wealthy  county  of  Jefferson,"  he  adds, 
"are  the  towns  of  Carthage,  Great  Bend,  Felt's 
Mills,  Lockport  (now  Black  River),  Brownville 
and  Dexter,  with  Watertown,  its  county  seat,  well 
located  for  a  manufacturing  city,  having  ample 
water  power,  at  the  same  time  surrounded  by  a 
country  rich  in  its  soil  and  highly  cultivated  to 
meet  the  wants  of  the  operatives.  Watertown 
contains  about  10,000  inhabitants  and  is  the  most 
modern,  city-like  built,  inland  town  in  the  Union, 
containing  about  100  stores,  five  banks,  cotton  and 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  23 

woolen  factories,  six  large  flouring  mills,  machine 
shops,  furnaces,  paper  mills,  and  innumerable 
other  branches  of  business,  with  many  first  class 
hotels,  among  which  the  '  Woodruff  House '  may  be 
justly  called  the  Metropolitan  of  Western  New 
York." 

In  that  early  day,  more  than  $795,000  had  been 
invested  in  manufacturing  enterprises  along  the 
Black  River,  at  Watertown  and  below.  The  ter- 
ritory was  a  fine  traffic  plum  for  any  railroad 
project.  It  seems  a  pity  that  after  all  the  am- 
bitious dreams  of  the  Sackett's  Harbor  &  Sara- 
toga and  the  very  considerable  expenditures  that 
were  made  upon  its  right-of-way,  that  it  was  to  be 
doomed  to  die  without  ever  having  operated  a 
single  through  train.  The  nineteen  or  twenty 
miles  of  its  line  that  were  put  down,  north  and 
west  from  Saratoga  Springs,  long  since  lost  their 
separate  identity  as  a  branch  of  the  Delaware  & 
Hudson  system.  ! 


CHAPTER  III  , 

THE   COMING  OF  THE  WATERTOWN  &  ROME 


first  successful  transportation  venture  of 
the  North  Country  was  still  ahead  of  it.  The 
efforts  of  these  patient  souls,  who  struggled  so 
hard  to  establish  the  Northern  Eailroad  as  an  en- 
trance to  the  six  counties  from  the  east,  were  be- 
ing echoed  by  those  who  strove  to  gain  a  rail  en- 
trance into  it  from  the  south.  Long  ago  in  this 
narrative  we  saw  how  as  far  back  as  1836  the 
locomotive  first  entered  Utica.  Six  or  seven 
years  later  there  was  a  continuous  chain  of  rail- 
roads from  Albany  to  Buffalo  —  precursors  of  the 
present  New  York  Central  —  and  ambitious  plans 
for  building  feeder  lines  to  them  from  surround- 
ing territory,  both  to  the  north  and  to  the  south. 
The  early  Oswego  &  Syracuse  Eailroad  was  typi- 
cal of  these. 

Of  all  these  plans  none  was  more  ambitious,  how- 
ever, than  that  which  sought  to  build  a  line  from 
Rome  into  the  heart  of  the  rich  county  of  Jeffer- 
son, the  lower  valley  of  the  Black  River  and  the 

24 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  25 

St.  Lawrence  River  at  almost  the  very  point  where 
Lake  Ontario  debouches  into  it.  The  scheme  for 
this  road,  in  actuality,  antedated  the  coming  of  the 
locomotive  into  Utica  by  four  years,  for  it  was  in 
1832 — upon  the  17th  day  of  April  in  that  year — 
that  the  Watertown  &  Borne  Railroad  was  first 
incorporated  and  Henry  H.  Coffeen,  Edmund 
Kirby,  Orville  Hungerford  and  William  Smith  of 
Jefferson  County,  Hiram  Hubbell,  Caleb  Carr, 
Benjamin  H.  Wright  and  Elisha  Hart,  of  Oswego, 
and  Jesse  Armstrong,  Alvah  Sheldon,  Artemas 
Trowbridge  and  Seth  D.  Roberts,  of  Oneida, 
named  by  the  Legislature  as  commissioners  to 
promote  the  enterprise.  Later  George  C.  Sher- 
man, of  Watertown,  was  added  to  these  commis- 
sioners. The  act  provided  that  the  road  should 
be  begun  within  three  years  and  completed  within 
five.  Its  capital  stock  was  fixed  at  $1,000,000, 
divided  into  shares  of  $100  each. 

The  commercial  audacity,  the  business  daring 
of  these  men  of  the  North  Country  in  even  seek- 
ing to  establish  so  huge  an  enterprise  in  those 
early  days  of  its  settlement  is  hard  to  realize  in 
this  day,  when  our  transport  has  come  to  be  so 
facile  and  easily  understood  a  thing.  Their 
courage  was  the  courage  of  mental  giants.  The 
railroad  was  less  than  three  years  established  in 
the  United  States;  in  the  entire  world  less  than 


26  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

five.  Yet  they  sought  to  bring  into  Northern  New 
York,  there  at  the  beginning  of  the  third  decade 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  hardly  emerged  from 
primeval  forest,  the  highway  of  iron  rail,  that 
even  so  highly  a  developed  civilization  as  that  of 
England  was  receiving  with  great  caution  and  un- 
certainty. 

These  men  of  the  North  Country  had  not  alone 
courage,  but  vision;  not  alone  vision,  but  perse- 
verance. Their  railroad  once  born,  even  though 
as  a  trembling  thing  that  for  years  existed  upon 
paper  only,  was  not  permitted  to  die.  It  could 
not  die.  And  that  it  should  live  the  pioneers  of 
Jefferson  and  Oswego  rode  long  miles  over  un- 
speakably bad  roads  with  determination  in  their 
hearts. 

The  act  that  established  the  Watertown  &  Home 
Railroad  was  never  permitted  to  expire.  It  was 
revived;  again  and  again  and  again — in  1837,  in 
1845,  and  again  in  1847.  It  is  related  how  night 
after  night  William  Smith  and  Clarke  Rice  used 
to  sit  in  an  upper  room  of  a  house  on  Factory 
Street  in  Watertown — then  as  now,  the  shire-town 
of  Jefferson — and  exhibit  to  callers  a  model  of  a 
tiny  train  running  upon  a  little  track.  Factory 
Street  was  then  one  of  the  most  attractive  resi- 
dence streets  of  Watertown.  The  irony  of  fate 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  27 

was  yet  to  transfer  it  into  a  rather  grimy  artery 
of  commerce — by  the  single  process  of  the  build- 
ing of  the  main  line  of  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown 
Railroad  throughout  its  entire  length. 

These  men,  and  others,  kept  the  project  alive. 
William  Dewey  was  one  of  its  most  enthusiastic 
proponents.  As  the  result  of  a  meeting  held  at 
Pulaski  on  June  27,  1836,  he  had  been  chosen  to 
survey  a  line  from  Watertown  to  Rome — through 
Pulaski.  With  the  aid  of  Robert  F.  Livingston 
and  James  Roberts,  this  was  accomplished  in  the 
fall  of  1836.  Soon  after  Dewey  issued  two  thou- 
sand copies  of  a  small  thirty-two  page  pamphlet, 
entitled  Suggestions  Urging  the  Construction  of 
a  Railroad  from  Rome  to  Watertown.  It  was  a 
potent  factor  in  advocating  the  new  enterprise; 
so  potent,  in  fact,  that  Cape  Vincent,  alarmed  at 
not  being  included  in  all  of  these  plans,  held  a 
mass-meeting  which  was  followed  by  the  incor- 
poration of  the  Watertown  &  Cape  Vincent  Rail- 
road, with  a  modest  capitalization  of  but  $50,000. 
Surveys  followed,  and  the  immediate  result  of 
this  step  was  to  include  the  present  Cape  Vincent 
branch  in  all  the  plans  for  the  construction  of  the 
original  Watertown  &  Rome  Railroad. 

These  plans,  as  we  have  just  seen,  did  not  move 
rapidly.  It  is  possible  that  the  handicap  of  the 
great  distances  of  the  North  Country  might  have 


28  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

been  overcome  had  it  not  been  that  1837  was  des- 
tined as  the  year  of  the  first  great  financial  crash 
that  the  United  States  had  ever  known.  The 
northern  counties  of  New  York  were  by  no  means 
immune  from  the  severe  effects  of  that  disaster. 
Money  was  tight.  The  future  looked  dark.  But 
the  two  gentlemen  of  Watertown  kept  their  little 
train  going  there  in  the  small  room  on  Factory 
Street.  Faith  in  any  time  or  place  is  a  superb 
thing.  In  business  it  is  a  very  real  asset  indeed. 
And  the  faith  of  Clarke  Bice  and  William  Smith 
was  reflected  in  the  courage  of  Dewey,  who  would 
not  let  the  new  road  die.  To  keep  it  alive  he  rode 
up  and  down  the  proposed  route  on  horseback, 
summer  and  winter,  urging  its  great  necessity. 

Out  of  that  faith  came  large  action  once  again. 
Railroad  meetings  began  to  multiply  in  the  North 
Country;  the  success  of  similar  enterprises,  not 
only  in  New  York  State,  but  elsewhere  within  the 
Union,  was  related  to  them.  Finally  there  came 
one  big  meeting,  on  a  very  cold  10th  of  February 
in  1847,  in  the  old  Universalist  Church  at  Water- 
town.  All  Watertown  came  to  it;  out  of  it  grew 
a  definite  railroad. 

Yet  it  grew  very  slowly.  In  the  files  of  the  old 
Northern  State  Journal,  of  Watertown,  and  under 
the  date  of  March  29,  1848,  I  find  an  irritated  edi- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  29 

tonal  reference  to  the  continual  delays  in  the 
building  of  the  road.  Under  the  heading  "Our 
Eailroad, ' '  the  Journal  describes  a  railroad  meet- 
ing held  in  the  Jefferson  County  Court  House  a 
few  days  before  and  goes  on  to  say: 

" .  .  .  Seldom  has  any  meeting  been  held  in  this 
county  where  more  unanimity  and  enthusiastic  de- 
votion to  a  great  public  object  have  been  dis- 
played, than  was  evidenced  in  the  character  and 
conduct  of  the  assemblage  that  filled  the  Court 
House.  .  .  .  Go  ahead,_  and  that  immediately,  was 
the  ruling  motto  in  the  speeches  and  resolutions 
and  the  whole  meeting  sympathized  in  the  senti- 
ment. And  indeed,  it  is  time  to  go  ahead.  It  is 
now  about  sixteen  years  since  a  charter  was  first 
obtained  and  yet  the  first  blow  is  not  struck.  No 
excuse  for  further  delay  will  be  received.  None 
will  be  needed.  We  understand  that  measures 
have  already  been  taken  to  expend  in  season  the 
amount  necessary  to  secure  the  charter — to  call 
in  the  first  installment  of  five  per  cent — to  organ- 
ize and  put  upon  the  line  the  requisite  number  of 
engineers  and  surveyors — and  to  hold  an  election 
for  a  new  Board  of  Directors. 

"We  trust  that  none  but  efficient  men,  firm 
friends  of  the  Eailroad,  will  be  put  in  the  Direc- 
tion. The  Stockholders  should  look  to  this  and 
vote  for  no  man  that  they  do  not  know  to  be 


30  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

warmly  in  favor  of  an  active  prosecution  of  the 
work  to  an  early  completion.  This  subject  has 
been  so  long  before  the  community  that  every 
man's  sentiments  are  known,  and  it  would  be  folly 
to  expose  the  road  to  defeat  now  by  not  being 
careful  in  the  selection.  With  a  Board  of  Direc- 
tors such  as  can  be  found,  the  autumn  of  1849 
should  be  signalized  by  the  opening  of  the  entire 
road  from  the  Cape  to  Rome.  It  can  be  done  and 
it  should  be  done.  The  road  being  a  great  good 
the  sooner  we  enjoy  it  the  better." 

So  it  was  that  upon  the  sixth  day  of  the  follow- 
ing April  the  actual  organization  of  the  Water- 
town  &  Eome  Eailroad  was  accomplished  at  the 
American  Hotel,  in  Watertown,  and  an  emissary 
despatched  to  Albany,  who  succeeded  on  April 
28th  in  having  the  original  Act  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  line  extended,  for  a  final  time.  It  also 
provided  for  the  increase  of  the  capitalization 
from  $1,000,000  to  $1,500,000— in  order  that  the 
new  road,  once  built,  could  be  properly  equipped 
with  iron  rail,  weighing  at  least  fifty-six  pounds 
to  the  yard.  It  was  not  difficult  by  that  time  to 
sell  the  additional  stock  in  the  company.  The 
missionary  work — to-day  we  would  call  it  propa- 
ganda— of  its  first  promoters  really  had  been  a 
most  thorough  job. 


ORVILLE  HUXGERFORD 
First  President  of  the  Watertown  &  Rome  Railroad. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  31 

The  original  officers  of  the  Watertown  &  Eome 
Railroad  were : 

President,  ORVILLE  HUNGERFQ&D,  Watertown 
Secretary,  CLARKE  RICE,  Watertown 
Treasurer,  O.  V.  BRAINARD,  Watertown 
Superintendent,  R.  B.  DOXTATER,  Watertown 

Directors 

S.  N.  Dexter,  New  York  Clarke  Rice,  Watertown 

William  C.  Pierrepont,  Robert  B.  Doxtater,  New  York 

Brooklyn  Orville  Hungerford,  Watertown 

John  H.  Whipple,  New  York  William  Smith,  Watertown 

Norris  M.  Woodruff,  Watertown  Edmund  Kirby,  Brownville 

Samuel  Buckley,  Watertown  Theophilus  Peugnet, 
Jerre  Carrier,  Cape  Vincent  Cape  Vincent 

The  summer  of  1847  was  spent  chiefly  in  per- 
fecting the  organization  and  financial  plans  of  the 
new  road,  in  eliminating  a  certain  opposition  to  it 
within  its  own  ranks  and  in  strengthening  its 
morale.  At  the  initial  meeting  of  the  Board  of 
Directors,  William  Smith  had  been  allowed  two 
dollars  a  day  for  soliciting  subscriptions  while 
Messrs.  Hungerford,  Pierrepont,  Doxtater  and 
Dexter  were  appointed  a  committee  to  go  to  New 
York  and  Boston  for  the  same  purpose.  A  cam- 
paign fund  of  $500  was  allotted  for  this  entire 
purpose. 

The  question  of  finances  was  always  a  delicate 
and  a  difficult  one,  In  the  minutes  of  the  Board 


32  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

for  May  10, 1848, 1  find  that  the  question  of  where 
the  road  should  bank  its  funds  had  been  a  vexed 
one,  indeed.  It  was  then  settled  by  dividing  the 
amount  into  twentieths,  of  which  the  Jefferson 
County  Bank  should  have  eight,  the  Black  River, 
four,  Hungerf ord  's,  three,  the  Bank  of  Water- 
town,  three,  and  Wooster  Sherman's  two. 

Gradually  these  funds  accumulated.  The  sub- 
scriptions had  been  solicited  upon  a  partial  pay- 
ment basis  and  these  initial  payments  of  five  and 
ten  percent  were  providing  the  money  for  the  ex- 
penses of  organization  and  careful  survey.  This 
last  was  accomplished  in  the  summer  of  1848,  by 
Isaac  W.  Crane,  who  had  been  engaged  as  Chief 
Engineer  of  the  property  at  $2500  a  year.  Mr. 
Crane  made  careful  resurveys  of  the  route — omit- 
ting Pulaski  this  time;  to  the  very  great  distress 
of  that  village — and  estimated  the  complete  cost 
of  the  road  at  about  $1,250,000.  It  is  interesting 
to  note  that  its  actual  cost,  when  completed,  was 
$1,957,992. 

In  that  same  summer,  Mr.  Brainard  retired  as 
Treasurer  of  the  company  and  was  succeeded  by 
Daniel  Lee,  of  Watertown,  whose  annual  compen- 
sation was  fixed  at  $800.  Later,  Mr.  Lee  in- 
creased this,  by  taking  upon  his  shoulders  the 
similar  post  of  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown.  The 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  33 

infant  Watertown  &  Rome  found  need  of  offices 
for  itself.  It  engaged  quarters  over  Tubbs'  Hat 
Store,  which  modestly  it  named  The  Railroad 
Rooms  and  there  it  was  burned  out  in  the  great 
fire  of  Watertown,  May  13, 1849. 

All  of  these  were  indeed  busy  months  of  prepa- 
ration. There  were  locomotives  to  be  ordered. 
Four  second-hand  engines,  as  we  shall  see  in  a 
moment,  were  bought  at  once  in  New  England,  but 
the  old  engine  Cayuga,  which  the  Schenectady  & 
Utica  had  offered  the  Rome  road  at  a  bargain- 
counter  price  of  $2500  finally  was  refused.  Nego- 
tiations were  then  begun  with  the  Taunton  Loco- 
motive Works  for  the  construction  of  engines 
which  would  be  quite  the  equal  of  any  turned  out 
in  the  land  up  to  that  time;  and  which  were  to  be 
delivered  to  the  company,  at  its  terminal  at  Rome 
—at  a  cost  of  $7150  apiece.  Horace  W.  Woodruff, 
of  Watertown,  was  given  the  contract  for  building 
the  cars  for  the  new  line;  he  was  to  be  paid  for 
them,  one-third  in  the  stock  of  the  company  and 
two-thirds  in  cash.  His  car- works  were  upon  the 
north  bank  of  the  Black  River,  upon  the  site  now 
occupied  by  the  Wise  Machine  Company  and  it 
was  necessary  to  haul  the  cars  by  oxen  to  the  rails 
of  the  new  road,  then  in  the  vicinity  of  Water- 
town  Junction.  Yet  despite  the  fact  that  his 
works  in  Watertown  never  had  a  railroad  siding 


34  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Woodruff  later  attained  quite  a  fame  as  a  builder 
of  sleeping-cars.  His  cars  at  one  time  were  used 
almost  universally  upon  the  railroads  of  the 
Southwest. 

Construction  began  upon  the  new  line  at  Rome, 
obviously  chosen  because  of  the  facility  with 
which  materials  could  be  brought  to  that  point, 
either  by  rail  or  by  canal— although  no  small  part 
of  the  iron  for  the  road  was  finally  brought  across 
the  Atlantic  and  up  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Cape 
Vincent.  Nat  Hazeltine  is  credited  with  having 
turned  the  first  bit  of  sod  for  the  line.  The  gen- 
tle nature  of  the  country  to  be  traversed  by  the 
new  railroad — the  greater  part  of  it  upon  the  easy 
slopes  at  the  easterly  end  of  Lake  Ontario — pre- 
sented no  large  obstacles,  either  to  the  engineers 
or  the  contractors,  these  last,  Messrs.  Phelps, 
Matoon  and  Barnes,  of  Springfield,  Massachusetts. 
The  rails,  as  provided  in  the  extension  of  the 
road's  charter,  were  fifty-six  pounds  to  the  yard 
(to-day  they  are  for  the  greater  part  in  excess  of 
100)  and  came  from  the  rolling-mills  of  Guest  & 
Company,  in  Wales.  The  excellence  of  their  ma- 
terial and  their  workmanship  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  they  continued  in  service  for  many  years, 
without  a  single  instance  of  breakage.  When 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  35 

they  finally  were  removed  it  was  because  they 
were  worn  out  and  quite  unfit  for  further  service. 

Construction  once  begun,  went  ahead  very 
slowly,  but  unceasingly.  By  the  fall  of  1850  track 
was  laid  for  about  twenty-four  miles  north  of 
Rome  and  upon  September  10th  of  that  year,  a 
passenger  service  was  installed  between  Rome  and 
Camden.  Fares  were  fixed  at  three  cents  a  mile 
— later  a  so-called  second-class,  at  one  and  one- 
half  cents  a  mile  was  added — and  a  brisk  business 
started  at  once. 

It  was  not  until  May  of  the  following  year  that 
the  iron  horse  first  poked  his  nose  into  the  county 
of  Jefferson.  The  (Watertown)  Reformer  an- 
nounced in  its  issue  of  May  1  that  year  that  the 
six  miles  of  track  already  laid  that  spring  would 
come  into  use  that  very  week,  bringing  the  com- 
pleted line  into  the  now  forgotten  hamlet  of  Wash- 
ingtonville  in  the  north  part  of  Oswego  county. 
Two  weeks  later,  it  predicted  it  would  be  in  Jeffer- 
son. 

Its  prediction  was  accurately  fulfilled.  On  the 
twenty- eighth  day  of  the  month,  at  Pierrepont 
Manor,  this  important  event  formally  came  to 
pass  and  was  attended  by  a  good-sized  conclave  of 
prominent  citizens,  who  afterwards  repaired  to 


36  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

the  home  of  Mr.  William  C.  Pierrepont,  not  far 
from  the  depot,  where  refreshments  were  served. 
The  rest  your  historian  leaves  to  your  imagina- 
tion. 

At  that  day  and  hour  it  seemed  as  if  Pierre- 
pont Manor  was  destined  to  become  an  important 
town.  The  land  office  of  its  great  squire  was  still 
doing  a  thriving  business.  For  Pierrepont  Manor 
then,  and  for  ten  years  afterwards,  was  a  rail- 
road junction,  with  a  famous  eating-house  as  one 
of  its  appendages.  It  seems  that  Sackett's  Har- 
bor had  decided  that  it  was  not  going  to  permit 
itself  to  be  outdone  in  this  railroad  business  by 
Cape  Vincent.  If  the  Harbor  could  not  realize  its 
dream  of  a  railroad  to  Saratoga  it  might  at  least 
build  one  to  the  new  Watertown  &  Borne  road 
there  at  Pierrepont  Manor,  and  so  gain  for  itself 
a  direct  route  to  both  New  York  and  Boston. 
And  as  a  fairly  immediate  extension,  a  line  on  to 
Pulaski,  which  might  eventually  reach  Syracuse, 
was  suggested. 

At  any  rate,  on  May  23, 1850,  the  Sackett's  Har- 
bor &  Ellisburgh  Eailroad  was  incorporated. 
Funds  were  quickly  raised  for  its  construction, 
and  it  was  builded  almost  coincidently  with  the 
Watertown  &  Borne.  Thomas  Stetson,  of  Boston, 
had  the  contract  for  building  the  line ;  being  paid 
$150,000;  two-thirds  in  cash  and  one-third  in  its 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  37 

capital  stock.  It  was  completed  and  opened  for 
business  by  the  first  day  of  January,  1853.  It  was 
not  destined,  however,  for  a  long  existence.  From 
the  beginning  it  failed  to  bring  adequate  returns — 
the  Watertown  &  Eome  management  quite  nat- 
urally favoring  its  own  water  terminal  at  Cape 
Vincent.  By  1860  it  was  in  a  fearful  quagmire. 
In  November  of  that  year,  W.  T.  Searle,  of  Belle- 
ville, its  President  and  Superintendent,  wrote  to 
the  State  Engineer  and  Surveyor  at  Albany,  say- 
ing that  the  road  had  reorganized  itself  as  the 
Sackett's  Harbor,  Rome  &  New  York,  and  that  it 
was  going  to  take  a  new  try  at  life.  But  it  was 
a  hard  outlook. 

' '  The  engine  used  by  the  company, ' '  Mr.  Searle 
wrote,  "  belongs  to  persons,  who  purchased  it  for 
the  purpose  of  the  operation  of  the  road  when  it 
was  known  by  the  corporate  name  of  the  Sackett  's 
Harbor  &  Ellisburgh,  and  has  cost  the  corporation 
nothing  up  to  the  end  of  this  year  for  its  use.  All 
the  cars  used  on  the  road  (there  were  only  four) 
except  the  passenger-car,  are  in  litigation,  but  in 
the  possession  of  individuals,  principally  stock- 
holders in  this  road,  who  have  allowed  the  cor- 
poration the  use  of  them  free  of  expense  .  .  ." 

Yet  despite  this  gloom,  the  little  road  was  keep- 
ing up  at  least  the  pretense  of  its  service.  It  had 
two  trains  a  day;  leaving  Pierrepont  Manor  at 


38  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

9:40  a.  m.  and  5:00  p.  m.  and  after  intermediate 
stops  at  Belleville,  Henderson  and  Smithville 
reaching  Sackett's  Harbor  at  10:45  a.  m.  (a  con- 
nection with  the  down  boat  for  Kingston  and  for 
Ogdensburgh)  and  at  6:30  p.  m.  The  trains  re- 
turned from  the  Harbor  at  11 :00  a.  m.  and  7 :00 
p.  m. 

Eeorganization,  the  grace  of  a  new  name,  failed 
to  save  this  line.  The  Civil  War  broke  upon  the 
country,  with  it  times  of  surpassing  hardness  and 
in  1862  it  was  abandoned;  the  following  year  its 
rails  torn  up  forever.  Yet  to  this  day  one  who  is 
even  fairly  acquainted  with  the  topography  of 
Jefferson  County  may  trace  its  path  quite  clearly. 

Here  ended  then,  rather  ignominiously  to  be 
sure,  a  fairly  ambitious  little  railroad  project. 
And  while  Sackett's  Harbor  was  eventually  to 
have  rail  transport  service  restored  to  it,  Belle- 
ville was  henceforth  to  be  left  nearly  stranded — 
until  the  coming  of  the  improved  highway  and  the 
motor-propelled  vehicle  upon  it.  Yet  it  was 
Belleville  that  had  furnished  most  of  the  inspira- 
tion and  the  capital  for  the  Sackett's  Harbor  & 
Ellisburgh.  And  even  though  in  its  old  records 
I  find  Mr.  M.  Loomis,  of  the  Harbor,  listed  as  its 
Treasurer,  Secretary,  General  Freight  Agent  and 
General  Ticket  Agent — a  regular  Pooh  Bah  sort 
of  a  job — W.  T.  Searle,  of  Belleville,  was  its  Presi- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  39 

dent  and  Superintendent;  and  A.  Dickinson,  of 
the  same  village,  its  Vice-President ;  George 
Clarke  and  A.  J.  Barney  among  the  Directors. 
These  men  had  dared  much  to  bring  the  railroad 
to  their  village  and  failing  eventually  must  finally 
have  conceded  much  to  the  impotence  of  human 
endeavor. 

In  the  summer  of  1851  work  upon  the  Water- 
town  &  Borne  steadily  went  forward  and  at  a 
swifter  pace  than  ever  before.  All  the  way 
through  to  Cape  Vincent  the  contractors  were  at 
work  upon  the  new  line.  They  were  racing 
against  time  itself  almost  to  complete  the  road. 
There  were  valuable  mail  contracts  to  be  obtained 
and  upon  these  hung  much  of  the  immediate  finan- 
cial success  of  the  road. 

In  the  spring  of  1922,  by  a  rare  stroke  of  good 
fortune,  the  author  of  this  book  was  enabled  to  ob- 
tain firsthand  the  story  of  the  construction  of  the 
northern  section  of  the  line.  At  Kane,  Pa,,  he 
found  a  venerable  gentleman,  Mr.  Richard  T. 
Starsmeare,  who  at  the  extremely  advanced  age 
of  ninety-five  years  was  able  to  tell  with  a  mar- 
velous clearness  of  the  part  that  he,  himself,  had 
played  in  the  construction  of  the  line  between 
Chaumont  and  Cape  Vincent.  With  a  single 
wave  of  his  hand  he  rolled  back  seventy  long  years 


40  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

and  told  in  simple  fashion  the  story  of  his  connec- 
tion with  the  Watertown  &  Rome : 

Young  Starsmeare,  a  native  of  London,  at  the 
age  of  twenty  had  run  away  to  sea.  He  crossed 
on  a  lumber-ship  to  Quebec  and  slowly  made  his 
way  up  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  year, 
1850,  had  scarce  been  born,  before  he  found  him- 
self in  the  stout,  gray  old  city  of  Kingston  in 
what  was  then  called  Upper  Canada.  It  was  an 
extremely  hard  winter  and  the  St.  Lawrence  was 
solidly  frozen.  So  that  Starsmeare  had  no  diffi- 
culty whatsoever  in  crossing  on  the  ice  to  Cape 
Vincent.  That  was  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  Jan- 
uary. Sleighing  in  the  North  Country  was  good. 
The  English  lad  had  little  difficulty  in  picking  up 
a  ride  here  and  a  ride  there  until  he  was  come  to 
Henderson  Harbor  to  the  farm  of  a  man  named 
Leffingwell.  Here  he  found  employment. 

But  Starsmeare  had  not  come  to  America  to  be 
a  farmer.  And  so,  a  year  later,  when  the  spring 
was  well  advanced,  he  borrowed  a  half-dollar  from 
his  employer  and  rode  in  the  stage  to  Sackett's 
Harbor.  That  ancient  port  was  a  gay  place  there 
at  the  beginning  of  the  fifties.  Its  piers  were  so 
crowded  that  vessels  lay  in  the  offing,  their  white 
sails  clearly  outlined  against  the  blue  of  the  harbor 
and  the  sky,  awaiting  an  opportunity  to  berth 
against  them.  But  the  vessels  had  no  more  than 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  41 

a  passing  interest  for  the  young  Englishman  who 
saw  them  in  all  the  rush  and  bustle  of  the  Sac- 
kett's  Harbor  of  1850.  For  men  in  the  lakeside 
village  were  whispering  of  the  coming  of  the  rail- 
road, of  the  magic  presence  of  the  locomotive  that 
so  soon  was  to  be  visited  upon  them. 

At  these  rumors  the  pulse  of  young  Bichard* 
Starsmeare  quickened.  He  had  seen  the  railroad 
already — back  home.  He  had  seen  it  in  his  home 
city  of  London,  had  seen  it  cutting  in  great  slits 
through  Camden  Town  and  Somers  Town,  riding 
across  Lambeth  upon  seemingly  unending  brick 
viaducts.  His  desire  formed  itself.  He  would  go 
to  work  upon  this  railroad.  .  .  .  The  master  of  a 
small  coasting  ship  sailing  out  from  Sackett's 
Harbor  that  very  afternoon  offered  him  a  lift  as 
far  as  Three  Mile  Bay.  At  Three  Mile  Bay  they 
were  to  have  the  railroad.  Yet  when  he  arrived 
there  were  no  signs  whatsoever  of  the  iron  horse 
or  his  special  pathway. 

"At  Chaumont  you  will  find  it,"  they  told  him 
there.  Off  toward  Chaumont  he  trudged.  And 
presently  was  awarded  by  the  sight  of  bright  yel- 
low stakes  set  in  the  fields.  He  followed  these  for 
a  little  way  and  found  teams  and  wagons  at  work. 
Here  was  the  railroad.  The  railroad  needed  men. 
Specifically  it  needed  young  Starsmeare.  He 
found  the  boss  contractor;  and  went  to  work  for 


42  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

him.  He  helped  get  stone  out  of  a  nearby  quarry 
for  Cbaumont  bridge.  That  winter  he  assisted 
in  the  building  of  Chaumont  bridge ;  a  rather  pre- 
tentious enterprise  for  those  days. 

Steadily  the  Watertown  &  Rome  went  ahead. 
On  the  Fourth  of  July,  1851,  it  was  completed  to 
Adams,  which  was  made  the  occasion  of  a  mighty 
Independence  Day  celebration  in  that  brisk  vil- 
lage. Upon  the  arrival  of  the  first  train  at  its 
depot,  a  huge  parade  was  formed  which  marched 
up  into  the  center  of  the  town,  where  Levi  H. 
Brown,  of  Watertown,  read  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, and  William  Dewey,  who  had  made 
the  building  of  the  Watertown  &  Rome  his  life 
work,  delivered  a  smashing  address.  Afterwards 
the  procession  reformed  and  returned  to  the  de- 
pot where  a  big  dinner  was  served  and  the  drink- 
ing of  toasts  was  in  order.  There  were  fireworks 
in  the  evening  and  the  Adams  Guards  honored 
the  occasion  with  a  torchlight  parade. 

For  some  weeks  the  line  halted  there  at  Adams. 
A  citizen  of  Watertown  wrote  in  his  diary  in 
August  of  that  year  that  he  had  had  a  fearful  time 
getting  home  from  New  York  ".  .  .  The  cars 
only  ran  to  Adams,  and  I  had  to  have  my  horse 
sent  down  there  from  Watertown.  I  had  a  hard 
time  for  a  young  man  .  .  ."  he  complains  naively. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  43 

The  railroad  was,  however,  opened  to  Water- 
town,  its  headquarters,  its  chief  town,  and  the  in- 
spiration that  had  brought  it  into  being,  on  the 
evening  of  September  5,  1851.  At  eleven  o'clock 
that  evening,  up  to  the  front  of  the  passenger 
station,  then  located  near  the  foot  of  Stone  Street, 
the  first  locomotive  came  into  Watertown.  I  am 
not  at  all  sure  which  one  of  the  road 's  small  fleet 
it  was.  It  had  started  building  operations  with 
four  tiny  second-hand  locomotives  which  it  had 
garnered  chiefly  from  New  England — the  Lion, 
the  Roxbury,  the  Commodore  and  the  Chicopee. 
Of  these  the  Lion  was  probably  the  oldest,  cer- 
tainly the  smallest.  It  had  been  builded  by  none 
other  than  the  redoubtable  George  Stephenson, 
himself,  in  England,  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  be- 
fore it  first  came  into  Northern  New  York.  It 
was  an  eight- wheeled  engine,  of  but  fourteen  tons 
in  weight.  So  very  small  was  it  in  fact  that  it  was 
of  very  little  practical  use,  that  Louis  L.  Grant,  of 
Eome,  who  was  one  of  the  road's  first  repair-shop 
foreman,  finally  took  off  the  light  side-rods  be- 
tween the  drivers — the  Lion  was  inside  connected, 
after  the  inevitable  British  fashion,  and  had  a 
V-hook  gear  and  a  variable  cut-off — and  gained 
an  appreciable  tractive  power  for  the  little  en- 
gine. 

But,  at  the  best,  she  was  hardly  a  practical  loco- 


44  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

motive,  even  for  1851.  And  soon  after  the  com- 
pletion of  the  road  to  Cape  Vincent  she  was  rele- 
gated to  the  round-house  there  and  stored  against 
an  emergency.  That  emergency  came  three  or 
four  years  after  the  opening  of  the  line.  A  horse- 
man had  ridden  in  great  haste  to  the  Cape  from 
Rosiere — then  known  as  LaB ranche's  Crossing 
—with  news  of  possible  disaster. 

"The  wood-pile's  all  afire  at  the  Crossing,"  he 
shouted.  "Ef  the  road  is  a  goin'  to  have  any  fuel 
this  winter  you  'd  better  be  hustling  down  there. ' ' 

Richard  Starsmeare  was  on  duty  at  the  round- 
house. He  hurriedly  summoned  the  renowned 
Casey  Eldredge,  then  and  for  many  years  after- 
wards a  famed  engineer  of  the  Rome  road  and 
Peter  Runk,  the  extra  fireman  there.  Together 
they  got  out  the  little  Lion  and  made  her  fast  to  a 
flat-car  upon  which  had  been  put  four  or  five 
barrels  filled  with  water  to  extinguish  the  con- 
flagration. It  would  have  been  a  serious  matter 
indeed  to  the  road  to  have  had  that  wood-pile  de- 
stroyed. It  was  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  fuel 
supply  of  the  new  railroad.  The  Lion,  with  its 
tiny  fire-fighting  crew,  went  post-haste  to  La 
Branche's.  But  when  it  had  arrived  the  farmers 
roundabout  already  had  managed  to  extinguish 
the  flames.  .  .  .  Casey  Eldredge  reached  for  his 
watch. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  45 

"Gee,"  said  he,  "we  shall  have  to  be  getting 
out  of  this.  The  Steamboat  Express  will  be  upon 
our  heels.  Peter,  get  the  fire  up  again." 

Peter  got  the  fire  up.  He  opened  the  old  fire- 
box door  and  thrust  an  armful  of  pine  into  it. 
The  blaze  started  up  with  a  roar.  And  then  the 
men  who  were  on  the  engine  found  themselves  ly- 
ing on  their  backs  on  the  grass  beside  the  rail- 
road. .  .  . 

They  plowed  the  Lion  out  of  the  fields  around 
LaBranche  's  for  the  next  two  years.  Her  safety- 
valve  was  turned  out  of  the  ground  by  a  farmer's 
boy  a  good  two  miles  from  the  railroad.  Stars- 
meare  got  it  and  carried  it  in  his  tool-box  for 
years  thereafter — he  quickly  rose  to  the  post  of 
engineer  and  in  the  days  of  the  Civil  War  ran  a 
locomotive  upon  the  United  States  Military  Bail- 
road  from  Washington  south  through  Alexandria 
to  Orange  Court  House. 

So  perished  the  Lion.  The  little  Roxbury's 
fate  was  more  prosaic.  With  the  flanges  upon 
her  driving-wheels  ground  down  and  her  frame 
set  upon  brick  piers  she  became  the  first  power- 
house of  the  Rome  shops.  The  Commodore  and 
the  Chicopee  were  larger  engines.  With  their 
names  changed  they  entered  the  road's  perma- 
nent engine  fleet. 


46  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

In  the  meantime  the  Watertown  &  Rome  was 
having  its  own  new  locomotives  builded  for  it  in 
a  shop  in  the  United  States.  Four  of  the  new  en- 
gines were  completed  and  ready  for  service  about 
the  time  that  the  road  was  opened  into  Water- 
town.  The  fifth  engine,  the  Orville  Hungerford, 
built  like  its  four  immediate  predecessors,  by  Wil- 
liam Fairbanks,  at  Taunton,  Mass.,  was  not  de- 
livered until  the  19th  day  of  that  same  September, 
1851.  The  Hungerford  was  quite  the  best  bit  of 
the  road's  motive-power,  then  and  for  a  number 
of  years  thereafter.  She  was  inside  connected — 
her  cylinders  and  driving-rods  being  placed  inside 
of  the  wheels ;  always  the  fashion  of  British  loco- 
motives— and  it  was  not  until  a  long  time  after- 
wards that  she  was  rebuilt  in  the  Eome  shops  and 
the  cylinders  and  rods  placed  outside,  after  the 
present-day  American  fashion.  She  was  but 
twenty-one  and  a  half  tons  in  weight  all-told,  while 
her  four  predecessors,  the  Watertown,  the  Rome, 
the  Adams  and  the  Kingston,  each  twenty- two 
tons  and  a  half. 

I  have  digressed.  It  still  is  the  evening  of  the 
fifth  of  September,  1851.  A  great  crowd  had 
congregated  that  evening  in  the  neighborhood 
of  that  first,  small  temporary  station  at  Water- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  47 

town.  The  iron  horse  was  greeted  with  many 
salvos  of  applause,  the  waving  of  a  thousand 
torches  and,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  with  the  pres- 
ence of  a  band.  Yet  the  real  celebration  over  the 
arrival  of  the  railroad  was  delayed  for  nineteen 
days,  when  there  was  a  genuine  fete.  It  was  first 
announced  by  the  Reformer  on  the  4th  of  Septem- 
ber, saying: 

".  .  .  We  are  informed  by  R.  B.  Doxtater,  Esq., 
the  gentlemanly  and  efficient  Superintendent  of 
the  Watertown  &  Eome  Railroad,  that  the  public 
celebration  in  connection  with  the  opening  of  this 
road  will  take  place  on  Wednesday,  the  24th  Sep- 
tember. This  will  be  a  proud  day  for  Jefferson 
County  and  we  trust  that  she  may  wear  the  honor 
conferred  upon  her  in  a  becoming  manner.  The 
known  liberality  of  our  citizens  induces  the  belief 
that  nothing  will  be  left  undone  on  their  part  to 
contribute  to  the  general  festivities  and  interest 
of  the  occasion.  .  .  ." 

Nothing  was  left  undone.  The  morning  of  the 
24th  of  September  was  ushered  in  by  a  salute  of 
guns ;  thirteen  in  all,  one  for  each  member  of  the 
Board  of  Directors.  At  10  o'clock  a  parade 
formed  in  the  Public  Square,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  General  Abner  Baker,  Grand  Marshal  of 
the  day,  and  in  the  following  formation : 


48  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Music 

Watertown  Citizens'  Corps 

Order  of  The  Sons  of  Temperance 

Fire  Companies  of  Watertown  and  Rome 

Order  of  Odd  Fellows 

Committee  of  Arrangements 

Corporate  Authorities  of  W^atertown,  Kingston,  Rome  and  Utica 

Clergy  and  the  Press 
Officers,  Directors,  Engineers  and  Contractors 

of  the 
Watertown  &  Rome  Railroad 

Specially  Invited  Guests 

Strangers  from  Abroad  and  the  Stockholders 

Citizens 


The  procession  marched  down  Stone  Street  to 
the  passenger  depot  of  the  new  railroad  where  the 
special  train  from  Borne  arrived  at  a  little  after 
eleven  o'clock  and  was  greeted  by  a  salvo  of 
seventy-two  guns — one  for  each  mile  of  completed 
line.  There  it  reformed,  with  its  accessions  from 
the  train  and  returned  to  the  Public  Square  where 
there  was  unbridled  oratory  for  nearly  an  hour. 
After  which  a  return  to  the  depot  in  which  a  large 
collation  was  served,  before  the  return  to  the  spe- 
cial train  for  Borne. 

So  came  the  railroad  to  Watertown.  By  an  odd 
coincidence,  the  Hudson  Biver  Bailroad  from  New 
York  to  Albany  was  finished  in  almost  that  same 
month.  It  was  with  a  good  deal  of  pride  that  the 
resident  of  Watertown  contemplated  the  fact  that 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  49 

he  might  leave  his  village  by  the  morning  train  at 
five  o'clock  and  be  in  the  metropolis  of  the  New 
World  by  six  o'clock  that  same  evening.  Such 
speed !  Such  progress ! 

In  the  meantime  the  Watertown  &  Rome  Rail- 
road had  sustained  a  real  loss ;  in  the  death,  on 
the  morning  of  Sunday,  April  6,  1851,  of  its  first 
President,  the  Hon.  Orville  Hungerford.  As  the 
son  of  one  of  the  earliest  pioneers  of  Watertown, 
Mr.  Hungerford  had  played  no  small  part  in  its 
development.  Merchant,  banker,  Congressman, 
he  had  been  to  it.  And  to  the  struggling  Water- 
town  &  Rome  Railroad  he  was  not  merely  its 
President,  but  its  financial  adviser  and  friend.  It 
was  due  to  his  personal  endorsement  of  the  pro- 
ject, as  well  as  that  of  his  bank,  that  hope  in  it  was 
finally  revived.  Then  it  was  that  foreign  capi- 
talists had  their  doubts  as  to  its  final  success  dis- 
pelled and  gave  evidence  of  their  faith  in  the  new 
road  by  substantial  purchases  of  its  securities. 

Mr.  Hungerford  was  succeeded  as  President  of 
the  Watertown  &  Rome  by  Mr.  W.  C.  Pierrepont, 
of  Brooklyn,  who,  while  in  one  sense  an  alien  to 
Jefferson  County,  was  in  another  and  far  larger 
one,  not  only  one  of  her  chief  residents  but  one  of 
her  most  loyal  sons.  He,  too,  had  been  a  power- 
ful friend  and  advocate  of  the  new  road,  had 


50  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

worked  tirelessly  in  its  behalf.  It  was  his  rare 
opportunity  to  stand  as  its  President  when  the 
locomotive  first  arrived  at  Pierrepont  Manor,  the 
center  of  his  land  holdings,  and  a  very  few  months 
later  in  the  same  enviable  post  at  Watertown. 
It  was  his  patient  habit  to  go  down  to  the  depot 
at  the  Manor  evening  after  evening  and  with  a 
spy-glass  in  hand  watch  the  track  toward  Manns- 
ville  for  the  coming  of  the  evening  train.  There 
was  no  telegraph  in  those  days,  of  course,  and  the 
locomotive's  smoke  was  the  only  signal  of  its 
pending  arrival.  Neither  was  there  any  standard 
time.  Finally  it  was  Pierrepont,  himself,  who 
fixed  the  official  time  for  the  road,  ascertaining  by 
a  skillful  use  of  his  chronometer  that  the  suntime 
at  Watertown  was  just  seven  minutes  and  forty- 
eight  seconds  slower  than  that  of  the  City  Hall  in 
New  York.  And  so  it  was  officially  fixed  for  the 
railroad. 

Under  Mr.  Pierrepont 's  oversight  the  Water- 
town  &  Borne  Eailroad  was  finished;  through  to 
the  village  of  Chaumont  in  the  fall  of  1851,  and 
then  in  April  of  the  following  year  to  Cape  Vin- 
cent, its  original  northern  terminal.  At  this  last 
point  elaborate  plans  were  made  for  a  water 
terminal.  Even  though  the  harbor  there  was  not 
to  be  protected  by  a  breakwater  for  many,  many 
years  to  come,  the  town  was  recognized  as  an 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  51 

international  gateway  of  a  very  considerable  im- 
portance. A  ferry  steamer,  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  which  had  attained  a  distinction  from  the 
fact  that  it  was  the  first  upon  these  northern 
waters  to  have  staterooms  upon  its  upper  decks, 
was  engaged  for  service  between  the  Cape  and 
the  city  of  Kingston,  in  Upper  Canada.  Exten- 
sive piers  and  an  elevator  were  builded  there  upon 
the  bank  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  the  large 
covered  passenger  station  that  was  so  long  a 
familiar  landmark  of  that  port. 

For  forty  years  this  station  stood,  even  though 
the  span  of  life  of  the  large  hotel  that  adjoined 
it  was  ended  a  decade  earlier  by  a  most  devastat- 
ing fire.  But,  upon  the  evening  of  September  11, 
1895,  when  Conductor  W.  D.  Carnes — best  known 
as  "Billy"  Carnes — brought  his  train  into  the 
shed  to  connect  with  the  Kingston  boat,  a  violent 
storm  thrust  itself  down  upon  the  Cape.  In  the 
rainburst  that  accompanied  it,  the  folk  upon  the 
dock  sought  shelter  in  the  trainshed,  and  there 
they  were  trapped.  The  wind  swept  through  the 
open  end  of  that  ancient  structure  and  lifted  it 
clear  from  the  ground,  dropping  it  a  moment  later 
in  a  thousand  different  pieces.  It  was  a  real 
catastrophe.  Two  persons  were  killed  outright 
and  a  number  were  seriously  injured.  The  event 
went  into  the  annals  of  a  quiet  North  Country  vil- 


52  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

lage,  along  with,  the  fearful  disaster  of  the 
steamer  Wisconsin,  off  nearby  Grenadier  Island, 
many  years  before. 

With  the  Cape  Vincent  terminal  completed,  the 
regular  operation  of  trains  upon  the  Watertown 
&  Eome  began;  formally  upon  the  first  day  of 
May,  1852.  Six  days  later  the  road  suffered  its 
first  accident,  a  distressing  affair  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Pierrepont  Manor.  A  party  of  young 
men  in  that  village  had  taken  upon  themselves  to 
"  borrow "  a  hand-car,  left  by  the  contractor  be- 
side the  track  and  were  whirling  a  group  of  young 
women  of  their  acquaintance  upon  it  when  around 
the  curve  from  Adams  came  a  "light"  locomotive 
at  high-speed,  which  crashed  into  them  head-on 
and  killed  three  of  the  women  almost  instantly; 
and  seriously  wounded  a  fourth. 

The  first  employe  to  lose  his  life  in  the  service 
was  brakeman  George  Post,  who,  on  October  13th, 
of  that  year,  was  going  forward  to  lighten  the 
brakes  on  the  northbound  freight,  as  it  reached 
the  long  down-grade,  north  of  Adams  Centre, 
when  he  was  struck  by  an  overhead  bridge  and 
died  before  aid  could  reach  him. 

These  men  of  the  North  Country  were  learning 
that  railroading  is  not  all  prunes  and  preserves. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  53 

They  had  their  own  troubles  with  their  new  prop- 
erty. For  one  thing,  the  engines  kept  running  off 
the  track.  There  were  three  locomotive  derail- 
ments in  a  single  day  in  1853  and  the  Directors 
asked  the  Superintendent  if  he  could  not  be  a 
little  more  careful  in  the  operation  of  the  line. 
They  also  officially  chided,  quite  mildly,  one  of 
their  number  who  had  contributed  twenty-five 
dollars  to  the  Fourth-of-July  celebration  in 
Watertown  that  summer  without  asking  the  con- 
sent of  the  full  Board.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
quite  genially  voted  annual  passes  for  an  indefi- 
nite number  of  years  to  the  widows  of  Orville 
Hungerf  ord  and  of  Edmund  Kirby  as  well  as  their 
daughters. 

It  was  only  two  years  later  than  this  that  there 
was  a  change  in  the  Superintendent's  office,  Job 
Collamer,  who  had  succeeded  its  original  holder 
Eobert  B.  Doxtater,  being  succeeded  by  Carlos 
Dutton  who  was  paid  the  rather  astonishing 
salary,  for  those  days,  of  $4000  a  year.  A  year 
later  B.  E.  Hungerf  ord,  of  Watertown,  succeeded 
Daniel  Lee,  who  was  compelled  to  retire  by  seri- 
ous illness  as  the  company's  Treasurer  and  was 
paid  $1500  a  year,  with  an  occasional  five-hun- 
dred-dollar bond  from  the  sinking  fund  as  special 
compensation  at  Christmas  time.  It  was  about 


54  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

this  time  also,  that  John  S.  Coons,  now  of  Water- 
town,  became  station-agent  at  Brownville,  a  post 
which  he  held  for  four  or  five  years. 

These  events  were,  perhaps,  to  be  reckoned  as 
fairly  casual  things  in  the  life  of  a  railroad  which, 
to  almost  any  community  is  life  itself.  From  the 
beginning  the  Watertown  &  Rome  played  a  most 
important  part  in  the  life  of  the  steadily  growing 
territory  that  it  served.  Northern  New  York  was 
finally  beginning  to  come  into  its  own.  More 
than  a  hundred  thousand  folk  already  were  re- 
siding in  Jefferson,  St.  Lawrence  and  Lewis  coun- 
ties. No  longer  was  it  regarded  as  a  vast  wilder- 
ness somewhere  north  of  the  Erie  Canal.  Horace 
Greeley  had  visited  it  in  the  fifties,  had  lectured  in 
what  was  afterwards  Washington  Hall,  Water- 
town,  and  had  been  tremendously  impressed  by 
Mr.  Bradford's  portable  steam  engine.  And  in 
1859  the  eyes  of  the  entire  land  were  focused 
upon  Watertown  and  its  immediate  surroundings. 

That  was  the  year  of  the  big  ballooning.  John 
Wise,  of  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  a  well-famed 
aeronaut,  together  with  three  companions — John 
La  Mountain,  of  Troy,  and  William  Hyde  and 
0.  A.  Geager,  both  of  Bennington,  Vermont — had 
set  forth  from  St.  Louis  in  the  evening  in  the 
mammoth  balloon,  Atlantic,  with  the  expressed  in- 
tention of  sailing  to  New  York  City  in  it.  All 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  55 

night  long  they  traveled  and  sometime  before 
dawn  La  Mountain  fancied  that  they  were  over 
one  of  the  Great  Lakes — probably  Erie.  He 
awakened  his  sleeping  companions  and  pointing 
far  over  the  basket-edge  told  them  that  they  were 
passing  over  the  surface  of  a  large  body  of  water. 

"You  can  see  the  stars  below  you  now,"  he 
explained. 

And  so  they  were,  over  Erie.  They  continued 
to  sail  between  the  stars  until  dawn,  and  some- 
time just  before  noon  they  crossed  the  Niagara 
River,  well  in  sight  of  the  Falls.  Winging  their 
flight  at  a  rate  that  man  had  never  before  made 
and  would  not  make  again  for  many  and  many  a 
year  to  come,  the  Atlantic  traveled  the  whole 
length  of  Ontario  before  four  o  'clock  in  the  after- 
noon and  finally  made  a  forced  landing  not  far 
from  the  village  of  Henderson. 

The  fame  that  arose  from  so  vast  an  exploit 
literally  swept  around  the  world.  Hyde  and 
Geager  had  had  enough  of  ballooning  and  re- 
turned to  their  Vermont  home.  Wise  went  back 
to  Lancaster,  but  La  Mountain  found  an  intrepid 
and  a  fearless  companion  in  John  A.  Haddock,  at 
that  time  editor  of  the  Watertown  Reformer,  who 
once  had  been  into  the  wilds  of  Labrador  and  had 
returned  safely  from  them.  Together  these  men 
rescued  the  Atlantic  from  the  tangle  of  tree-tops 


56  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

into  which  it  had  fallen.  On  August  llth  of  that 
same  year  they  announced  an  ascension  from  the 
Fair  Grounds  in  Watertown,  accompanied  by  La 
Mountain's  young  cousin,  Miss  Ellen  Moss.  And 
on  the  twenty-second  of  the  following  September 
the  two  men  made  what  was  destined  to  be  the 
final  ascent  of  the  great  Atlantic.  The  balloon 
rose  high — from  the  Public  Square,  this  time — 
and  floated  off  toward  the  north  in  a  strong  wind. 
In  a  little  less  than  three  hours  it  traversed  some 
four  hundred  miles.  Then  a  quick  landing  was 
made,  in  the  vast  and  untrodden  Canadian  forest, 
some  150  miles  due  north  of  Ottawa,  a  region  even 
more  desolate  then  than  to-day. 

For  four  days  the  men  were  lost,  hopelessly. 
Their  airship  was  abandoned  in  the  trees  and  they 
made  their  way  afoot  as  best  they  might  until 
they  came  into  the  path  of  a  party  of  lumbermen 
bound  for  Ottawa.  It  was  another  seven  days  be- 
fore they  had  reached  the  Canadian  capital  and 
the  outposts  of  the  telegraph — in  all  eleven  end- 
less days  before  Watertown  knew  the  final  result 
of  the  foolhardy  ascension,  and  prepared  a  mighty 
welcome  for  them,  whom  they  had  given  up  as 
dead. 

To  these  really  tremendous  events  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  North  Country  the  Watertown  &  Eome 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  57 

and  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown  railroads — of  this 
last,  much  more  in  a  moment — ran  excursions 
from  all  Northern  New  York.  Vast  throngs  of 
people  came  upon  them.  The  effect  upon  the  pas- 
senger revenues  of  the  two  railroads  was  appre- 
ciable upon  the  occasion  of  the  balloon  ascension, 
just  as  it  had  been  three  summers  before,  when 
the  first  State  Fair  had  been  held  in  Watertown— 
in  a  pleasant  grove  very  close  to  the  site  of  the 
present  Jefferson  County  Orphans  Home.  At 
that  time  the  Borne  road  had  taken  in  nearly 
$11,000  in  excursion  receipts  and  the  Potsdam 
road,  although  at  that  time  only  completed  from 
Watertown  to  Gouverneur,  more  than  $5,000. 
This  was  used  as  an  argument  by  the  promoters  of 
the  second  State  Fair  at  Watertown — held  on  the 
present  county  fair  grounds  in  the  fall  of  1860,  for 
a  subscription  of  a  thousand  dollars  from  each  of 
the  roads — which  was  promptly  granted. 

Yet  the  Watertown  &  Eome  Eailroad  needed  no 
excursions  for  its  prosperity.  It  had  prospered 
greatly;  from  the  beginning.  Its  four  passenger 
trains  a  day — two  up  and  two  down — were  well 
filled  always.  Its  freight  train  which  ran  over 
the  entire  length  of  the  line  from  Eome  to  Cape 
Vincent  each  day  did  an  equally  good  business. 
Already  it  had  the  third  largest  freight-car  equip- 
ment of  any  railroad  in  the  state.  Its  success  was 


58  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

a  tremendous  incentive  to  all  other  railroad  pro- 
jects in  the  North  Country.  From  it  they  all 
took  hope.  We  have  seen  long  ago  the  serious 
efforts  that  were  being  made  to  build  a  road  di- 
rect from  Sackett's  Harbor  up  the  valley  of  the 
Black  River  to  Watertown  and  Carthage  and 
thence  across  the  all-but-impenetrable  North 
Woods  to  Saratoga.  Yet  nowhere  was  it  more 
obvious  that  a  railroad  should  be  builded  than 
between  Watertown  and  some  convenient  point 
upon  the  Northern  Railroad,  which  already  was 
in  complete  operation  between  Lake  Champlain 
and  Ogdensburgh.  Such  a  railroad  presently  was 
builded;  taking  upon  itself  the  appellation  of  the 
Potsdam  &  Watertown  Railroad.  And  to  the 
consideration  of  the  beginnings  of  that  railroad, 
a  most  vital  part  of  the  Rome,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh,  that  was  as  yet  unborn,  we  are  now 
fairly  come. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  POTSDAM  &  WATERTOWN  RAILROAD 

A  VERY  early  survey  of  the  Northern  Rail- 
road which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  was 
the  pioneer  line  of  the  North  Country,  projected 
the  road  between  Malone  and  Ogdensburgh 
through  the  prosperous  villages  of  Canton  and 
Potsdam.  This  survey  was  rejected.  The  spon- 
sors of  the  Northern — almost  all  of  them  Boston 
and  New  England  men  and  having  little  personal 
knowledge  of  Northern  New  York  and  certainly 
none  at  all  of  its  possibilities — thrust  this  pre- 
liminary survey  away  from  them.  They  decided 
that  the  road  should  run  between  its  terminals 
with  as  small  a  deviation  from  a  straight  line  as 
possible.  So,  from  Rouse's  Point  to  Ogdens- 
burgh, through  Malone,  the  Northern  Railroad 
ran  with  long  tangents  and  few  curves  and  both 
Canton  and  Potsdam  were  left  aside.  Through 
traffic  from  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  St.  Lawrence 
River  was  all  that  the  early  directors  of  the  line 
could  see.  Their  vision  was  indeed  limited. 

59 


60  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Canton  and  Potsdam  began  to  feel  their  isola- 
tion from  these  earliest  railroad  enterprises. 
They  were  cut  off  apparently  from  railroad  com- 
munication, either  with  the  East  or  with  the  West. 
The  Watertown  &  Rome  Eailroad,  as  planned 
from  Cape  Vincent  to  Rome,  would,  of  course, 
pass  through  Watertown,  but  no  one  seemed  to 
think  of  building  it  east  from  that  village. 

So,  practically  all  of  St.  Lawrence  County  and 
the  northern  end  of  Jefferson  was  left  without 
railroad  hopes.  Dissatisfaction  arose,  even  be- 
fore the  completion  of  the  Watertown  &  Rome, 
that  so  large  a  territory  had  been  so  completely 
slighted.  Potsdam,  in  particular,  felt  the  indig- 
nity that  had  been  heaped  upon  it.  And  so  it  was, 
that,  as  far  back  as  1850,  fifty-eight  of  the  public- 
spirited  citizens  of  that  village  organized  them- 
selves into  the  Potsdam  Railroad  Company  and 
proceeded  to  name  as  their  directors :  Joseph  H. 
Sanford,  William  W.  Goulding,  Samuel  Part- 
ridge, Henry  L.  Knowles,  Augustus  Fling,  Theo- 
dore Clark,  Charles  T.  Boswell,  Willard  M.  Hitch- 
cock, William  A.  Dart,  Hiram  E.  Peck,  Aaron  T. 
Hopkins,  Charles  Cox  and  Nathan  Parmeter. 
Among  the  stockholders  of  this  early  railroad 
company  were  Horace  Allen  and  Liberty  Knowles, 
whose  advanced  age  debarred  them  from  active 
participation  in  its  work,  but  who  responded  liber- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  61 

ally  to  frequent  calls  for  aid  in  its  construction. 
Soon  after  the  incorporation  of  the  Potsdam 
Railroad,  it  was  built,  primarily  as  a  branch  of 
some  five  and  one-half  miles  connecting  Potsdam 
with  the  Northern  Eailroad  at  a  point,  which,  for 
lack  of  an  immediate  better  name,  was  called  Pots- 
dam Junction.  Afterwards  it  was  renamed  Nor- 
wood. An  attractive  village  sprang  up  about  the 
junction,  which  finally  boasted  one  of  the  best  of 
the  small  hotels  of  the  whole  North  Country ;  the 
famed  Whitney  House,  with  which  the  name  and 
fame  of  the  late  "Sid"  Phelps  was  so  closely  con- 
nected for  so  many  years. 

The  success  of  Potsdam  with  her  railroad  and 
the  consequent  prosperity  that  it  brought  to  her 
stirred  the  interest  and  the  envy  of  the  neighbor- 
ing village  of  Canton;  the  shire-town  of  St. 
Lawrence.  Gouverneur  spruced  up  also.  The  St. 
Lawrence  towns  began  to  cooperate.  To  them 
came  a  great  community  of  interest  from  the 
northerly  townships  and  villages  of  Jefferson  as 
well — Antwerp,  Philadelphia  and  Evan's  Mills  in 
particular.  The  demand  for  a  railroad  between 
Watertown  and  Potsdam  began  to  take  a  definite 
form. 

It  was  not  an  easy  task  to  which  the  towns  and 
men  of  St.  Lawrence  and  of  Jefferson  had  set 


62  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

themselves.  Its  financial  aspects  were  porten- 
tous, to  put  it  mildly.  The  money  for  the  North- 
ern Railroad  had  come  from  New  England.  That 
for  the  Watertown  &  Rome  also  had  come  with  a 
comparative  ease.  Watertown  even  then  was  a 
rich  and  promising  industrial  center  and  there 
seemed  to  be  genuine  financial  opportunities  for 
a  railroad  that  would  connect  it  with  the  outer 
world.  But  St.  Lawrence  County,  there  at  the 
beginning  of  the  fifties,  was  poor  and  unde- 
veloped. Necessarily,  the  money  for  its  railroad 
would  have  to  come  from  its  own  territory. 
Nevertheless,  undaunted  by  difficulties,  these  men 
of  that  territory  set  about  to  build  a  railroad  from 
Potsdam  to  Watertown.  They  dared  much. 
Theirs  was  the  spirit  of  the  true  pioneer,  the  same 
spirit  that  was  building  a  college  at  Canton  and 
had  built  academies  at  Gouverneur  and  at  Pots- 
dam, and  that  was  planning  in  every  way  for  the 
future  development  of  the  North  Country. 

These  men  knew  more  than  a  little  of  the  re- 
sources of  their  townships.  They  whispered 
among  themselves  of  the  wealth  of  their  minerals. 
Along  the  county-line  between  St.  Lawrence  and 
Jefferson,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Keene's  Sta- 
tion, there  stand  to-day  unused  iron  mines  of  a 
considerable  magnitude.  Flooded  and  for  the 
moment  deserted,  these  mines  house  some  of  the 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  63 

greatest  of  the  untouched  treasures  of  Northern 
New  York ;  vast  deposits  of  red  hematite,  exceed- 
ing in  percentage  value  even  the  famous  fields  of 
the  Mesaba  district  of  Lake  Superior.  In  the 
course  of  this  narrative  I  shall  refer  again  to 
these  Keene  mines.  For  the  moment  consider 
them  as  a  monument — a  somewhat  neglected 
monument  to  be  sure — to  the  vision  and  persis- 
tence of  James  Sterling. 

It  was  largely  due  to  the  enterprise  of  this  pio- 
neer of  Jefferson  County  that  mines  and  blast  fur- 
naces sprang  up,  not  only  at  Keene 's  but  at  Ster- 
lingville  and  Lewisburgh  as  well.  He  built  many 
of  the  highways  and  bridges  both  of  Antwerp  and 
of  Kossie.  Yet,  in  the  closing  days  of  the  fifties, 
he  was  doomed  to  bitter  disappointments.  The 
great  panic  of  1857  and  the  inrush  of  cheap  iron 
that  followed  in  its  wake  were  quite  too  much  for 
him,  and  the  man  who  had  been  knowTi  through 
the  entire  state  as  the  "Iron  King  of  Northern 
New  York"  died  in  1863,  from  a  general  physical 
and  mental  breakdown,  due  in  no  small  part  to  the 
collapse  of  his  fortunes. 

I  anticipate,  we  were  talking  of  railroads,  not 
of  men.  Yet,  somehow,  men  must  forever  weave 
themselves  into  the  web  of  a  narrative  such  as 
this.  And  no  fair  understanding  can  ever  be  had 


64  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

of  the  difficulties  under  which  the  railroads  of  the 
North  Country  were  born  without  an  understand- 
ing of  the  difficulties  under  which  the  men  who 
helped  give  them  birth  labored.  To  return  once 
again  to  the  main  thread  of  our  story,  the  agita- 
tion for  the  building  of  a  railroad  between  Water- 
town  and  Potsdam  followed  closely  upon  the  heels 
of  the  completion  of  the  Northern  Railroad  and 
the  branch  Potsdam  Railroad,  from  it  to  the  fine 
village  of  that  name.  Stock  in  the  Northern  Rail- 
road had  been  sold  both  there  and  in  Canton,  even 
though  the  road  when  completed  had  passed  each 
by.  The  men  who  held  that  stock  wanted  to  come 
to  the  aid  of  the  newer  project.  With  their 
money  tied  up  in  the  elder  of  the  two,  they  were 
quite  helpless.  Eventually  their  release  was 
brought  about,  and  the  money  that  came  to  them 
from  the  sale  of  their  securities  of  the  Northern 
was  reinvested  in  those  of  the  Potsdam  &  Water- 
town  Railroad,  just  coming  into  being. 

A  meeting  was  held  in  Watertown  in  July,  1851 
(the  year  of  the  completion  of  the  Watertown  & 
Rome  Railroad)  and  E.  N.  Brodhead  employed 
to  make  a  preliminary  survey  of  the  proposed 
line;  which  would  be  followed  immediately  with 
maps  and  estimates.  He  went  to  his  task  without 
delay,  and  rendered  a  full  report  on  the  possibili- 
ties of  the  road  at  a  meeting  held  at  Gouverneur 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  65 

on  January  9,  1852.  There  were  no  dissenting 
voices  in  regard  to  the  proposed  line.  So  it  was, 
that  then  and  there,  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown 
Railroad  was  organized  permanently,  with  the 
following  directors : 

Edwin  Dodge,  Gouverneur  W.  E.  Sterling,  Gouverneur 

Zenas  Clark,  Potsdam  Joseph  H.  Sanford,  Potsdam 

Samuel  Partridge,  Potsdam  William  W.  Goulding,  Potsdam 

E.  Miner,  Canton  Barzillai  Hodskin,  Canton 

A.  M.  Adsit,  Colton  H.  B.  Keene,  Antwerp 

0.  V.  Brainard,  Watertown  Howell  Cooper,  Watertown 
Hiram  Holcomb,  Watertown 

The  old  minute-book  of  the  Directors  of  this 
early  railroad  has  been  carefully  preserved  in  the 
village  of  Potsdam.  It  is  a  narrative  of  a  really 
stupendous  effort,  of  struggles  against  adversity, 
of  undaunted  courage,  of  optimism  and  of  faith. 
It  relates  unemotionally  what  the  Directors  did, 
but  between  the  lines  one  also  reads  of  the  grave 
situations  that  confronted  them;  not  once,  but 
again  and  again.  And  there  lies  the  real  drama 
of  the  founding  of  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  Directors  was  held,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  on  January  9,  1852.  Most  of 
the  men,  who  were  that  day  elected  as  Directors, 
had  gone  on  that  day  to  Gouverneur — many 
others  too.  Watertown,  Gouverneur,  Canton  and 
Potsdam  were  present  in  their  citizens,  men  of 


66  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

worth  and  distinction  in  their  home  communities. 
Their  families  are  yet  represented  in  Northern 
New  York,  and  succeeding  generations  owe  to 
them  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  their  unselfish  work 
in  that  early  day.  For  what  could  there  be  of 
selfishness  in  a  task  which  promised  so  much  of 
worry  and  responsibility,  and  so  little  of  any  im- 
mediate financial  return? 

It  was  planned,  that  January  day  in  Gouver- 
neur,  that  work  should  be  begun  at  both  ends  of 
the  line  and  carried  forward  simultaneously,  until 
the  construction  crews  should  meet;  somewhere 
between  Potsdam  and  Watertown.  At  an  ad- 
journed meeting,  held  ten  days  later  at  the  Ameri- 
can Hotel  in  Watertown,  it  was  formally  resolved 
that;  "all  persons  who  have  subscribed  toward 
the  expenses  of  the  survey  of  the  Potsdam  & 
Watertown  Eailroad  Company  .  .  .  shall  be  en- 
titled to  a  credit  on  the  stock  account  for  the 
amount  so  subscribed  and  paid."  At  the  same 
meeting  it  was  decided  that  a  committee  consist- 
ing of  Messrs.  Farwell,  Holcomb  and  Dodge  be 
appointed  to  confer  with  the  officers  of  the  Water- 
town  &  Eome  in  regard  to  the  construction  of  a 
branch  into  the  village  of  Watertown.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  in  that  early  day  the  railroad 
did  not  approach  the  village  nearer  than  what  is 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  67 

now  known  as  the  junction,  at  the  foot  of  Stone 
Street. 

Progress  was  beginning,  in  real  earnest.  A 
third  meeting  was  held  on  February  26 — again  at 
Gouverneur,  at  Van  Buren's  Hotel — and  the  fol- 
lowing officers  chosen: 

President,  EDWIN  DODGE,  Gouverneur 
Vice-President,  ZENAS  CLARK,  Potsdam 
Secretary,  HENRY  L.  KNOWLES,  Potsdam 
Treasurer,  DANIEL  LEE,  Watertown 

Mr.  Lee  was  also  Treasurer  of  the  Watertown 
&  Eome.  His  Potsdam  &  Watertown  compensa- 
tion was  fixed  a  little  later  at  $600  annually. 
Four  years  later  he  was  succeeded  as  Treasurer 
by  William  W.  Goulding,  of  Potsdam,  who  was  en- 
gaged at  a  salary  of  a  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

At  that  same  Gouverneur  meeting  a  memorial 
was  prepared  for  the  Trustees  of  the  Village  of 
Watertown.  It  asked,  as  an  important  link  of  the 
pathway  for  the  new  railroad,  the  use  of  Factory 
Street  for  its  entire  length.  Factory  Street,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  was  one  of  the  most  aristo- 
cratic, as  well  as  one  of  the  prettiest  streets  of  the 
town.  So  great  was  Watertown 's  appreciation 
of  the  advantages  that  were  to  accrue  to  it  by  the 


68  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

completion  of  the  line  steel  highway  to  the  north 
that  the  permission  was  finally  granted  by  the 
Trustees,  not,  however,  without  a  considerable 
opposition. 

So  was  our  Potsdam  &  Watertown  fairly  started 
upon  its  important  career.  A  fund  of  something 
over  $750,000  having  been  raised  for  its  construc- 
tion, offices  were  opened  at  6  Washington  Street, 
Watertown,  and  definite  preparations  made 
toward  the  actual  building  of  the  road.  The 
breaking  of  ground  was  bound  to  be  preceded  by 
a  stout  financial  campaign.  Money  was  tight. 
And  remember  all  the  while,  if  you  will,  the  real 
paucity  of  it  in  the  North  Country  of  those  days. 
And  yet  early  in  1853,  it  was  found  necessary  to 
increase  the  capital  stock  to  $2,000,000,  in  itself, 
an  act  requiring  some  courage;  yet  after  all,  it 
might  have  required  more  courage  not  to  take  the 
step.  For,  of  a  truth,  the  company  needed  the 
money. 

Gradually  committees  were  appointed,  not  only 
to  look  after  this  and  other  vexing  financial  ques- 
tions, but  also  to  supervise  the  location  of  the  line 
as  well  as  to  provide  suitable  station  grounds  and 
buildings.  There  were  many  meetings  of  the 
Board  before  the  road  was  definitely  located; 
there  must  have  been  much  bitterness  of  spirit 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  69 

and  of  discussion.  Hermon  wanted  the  road,  and 
so  an  alternative  route  between  Canton  and  Gouv- 
erneur  was  surveyed  to  include  it.  In  1853  the 
Chief  Engineer  was  directed  "to  cause  the  middle 
route  (so  designated  in  Mr.  Brodhead's  report) 
in  the  towns  of  Canton  and  DeKalb  to  be  suf- 
ficiently surveyed  for  location  as  soon  as  prac- 
ticable, unless  upon  examination,  the  Engineer 
shall  believe  the  railroad  can  be  constructed  upon 
the  Hermon  route,  so  called,  as  cheaply  and  with 
as  much  advantage  to  the  company,  and  that  in 
such  case  he  cause  that  route  to  be  surveyed,  in- 
stead of  the  middle  route."  But  stock  subscrip- 
tions were  light  in  Hermon  and  engineering  dif- 
ficult on  its  route,  and  finally  the  "middle"  and 
present  route  by  the  way  of  DeKalb  and  Eichville 
was  selected.  Similarly  local  discouragements 
turned  the  line  sharply  toward  the  North,  after 
crossing  the  Racket  Eiver  at  Potsdam,  instead  of 
toward  the  South,  and,  a  more  direct  route  origi- 
nally surveyed,  toward  Canton. 

The  location  of  the  station  grounds  was  another 
source  of  fruitful  discussion.  In  this  regard, 
Gouverneur  seems  to  have  given  the  greatest  con- 
cern. Many  committees  wrestled  with  the  prob- 
lem of  its  depot  site.  In  the  old  minute-book, 
rival  locations  appear  and,  upon  one  occasion,  the 
matter  having  simmered  down  to  a  choice  between 


70  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

the  present  station  grounds  and  prospective  ones 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  the  Chief  Engineer 
was  directed  to  survey  out  both  locations  and  set 
stakes,  so  that  the  whole  Board  could  visit  the 
village  and  see  the  thing  for  itself. 

By  1854  distinct  progress  had  been  made.  At 
a  meeting  held  on  February  4th  of  that  year, 
Messrs.  Cooper,  Brainard  and  Holcomb,  of  the 
Directorate,  were  authorized  as  a  committee  to 
enter  into  negotiations  for  the  purchase  of  iron 
rails  for  the  road,  and  to  complete  the  purchase  of 
2500  tons  of  these,  by  sale  of  the  bonds  of  the  com- 
pany, "or  otherwise/'  The  financial  end  of  the 
transaction  was  apt  always  to  be  the  most  difficult 
part  of  it.  Yet  somehow  these  were  almost  al- 
ways solved.  The  Watertown  &  Rome  road 
guaranteed  some  of  the  bonds  of  the  Potsdam  & 
Watertown  and  Erastus  Corning,  of  Albany,  and 
John  H.  Wolfe,  of  New  York,  loaned  it  consider- 
able sums  of  money.  Construction  proceeded, 
and  on  May  4,  1854,  the  Directors  decided  to  send 
650  tons  of  the  new  iron  to  the  easterly  terminus 
of  the  road;  the  remainder  to  the  westerly  build- 
ing forces. 

In  the  fall  of  that  year,  a  considerable  amount 
of  track  having  been  laid  down,  the  Directors 
looked  toward  the  purchase  of  rolling  stock.  At 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  71 

their  November  meeting  they  decided  to  buy  the 
engine  Montreal,  and  its  tender,  from  the  Water- 
town  &  Rome,  at  a  cost  of  $4,500;  also  two  bag- 
gage and  "  post-office  "  cars,  at  $750  each.  Which 
provided  for  the  beginning  of  operation  at  the 
west  end  of  the  road. 

But  the  east  end  needed  rolling-stock  as  well— 
a  considerable  gap  still  intervened  between  the 
rail-heads  of  each  incomplete  section.  So  toward 
the  East,  the  Directors  of  the  Potsdam  &  Water- 
town  turned  their  attention.  They  found  some 
rolling  stock  in  the  hands  of  a  man  in  Plattsburgh ; 
"Vilas,  of  Plattsburgh "  is  his  sole  designation  in 
their  minutes.  This  Vilas,  it  would  appear,  was 
a  hard-headed  Clinton  County  business  man  who 
seemed  to  have  but  little  confidence  in  the  financial 
soundness  of  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown.  Noth- 
ing of  the  gambler  appears  in  Vilas.  He  did  not 
believe  in  taking  chances.  He  had  a  locomotive 
and  two  cars  that  he  would  sell — for  cash.  Even- 
tually, he  sold  them — for  cash.  Some  of  the 
Directors  of  the  P.  &  W.  bought  them,  themselves, 
paying  out  their  own  hard-earned  cash  for  them; 
and  recouping  themselves  by  accepting  pay  in  in- 
stallments from  the  company. 

Yet  the  possible  danger  in  a  continuance  of  such 
practices  was  recognized  even  in  that  early  day, 
and  in  order  to  avoid  similar  situations  arising  at 


72  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

some  later  time,  I  find  in  the  old  tome  a  resolu- 
tion reading:  " Whereas  in  raising  money  and 
carrying  on  the  operations  of  our  company  for  the 
completion  of  the  road,  the  unanimous  coopera- 
tion of  its  Directors  is  necessary,  particularly  in 
matters  involving  personal  pecuniary  liability, 
therefore:  Kesolved;  That  each  Director  now 
present  pledge  himself  to  endorse  and  guaranty 
all  notes  and  bills  of  exchange  required  by  the 
committee  on  finance  to  be  used  in  accordance  with 
the  preceding  resolution  .  .  .  and  that  we  hold  it 
to  be  the  duty  of  all  Directors  of  this  company  to 
do  the  same." 

From  time  to  time  a  note  of  pathos  creeps  into 
these  old  minutes  and  one  catches  a  glimpse  of  the 
trials  and  struggles  of  the  little  company.  For 
instance:  "Kesolved:  That  in  our  struggles  for 
the  construction  of  the  road  of  this  company, 
we  have  not  failed  to  appreciate  the  liberal  spirit 
with  which  we  have  been  met  and  the  encourage- 
ment and  aid  often  freely  afforded  us  by  Hon. 
George  V.  Hoyle,  Superintendent  of  the  Northern 
Eailroad,  and  we  avail  ourselves  of  this  occasion 
to  express  to  him,  individually  and  as  Superin- 
tendent, and  through  him  to  those  associated  with 
him  the  management  of  that  road,  our  sense  of 
obligation,  indulging  the  hope  that  we  shall  yet  be 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  73 

able  in  the  same  spirit  to  reciprocate  all  his  kind- 
ness, and  that  the  interest  of  Mr.  Hoyle  and  his 
road  may  be  abundantly  promoted  by  our  suc- 


cess." 


And  then,  finally,  success !  In  the  faded  minutes 
Secretary  Knowles  triumphantly  records  that 
"On  the  morning  of  the  fifth  of  February,  1857, 
a  passenger  train  left  Watertown  at  about  nine 
o  'clock  a.  m.,  with  many  of  the  officers  of  the  com- 
pany and  invited  friends,  passed  leisurely  over 
the  entire  road  to  its  junction  with  the  Northern 
Eailroad,  thence  with  the  Superintendent  of  that 
road  to  Ogdensburgh,  arriving  at  Ogdensburgh  at 
about  four  o'clock  and  returned  the  next  day  to 
Watertown. ' ' 

This  is  not  to  be  interpreted,  however,  as  mean- 
ing that  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown  was  immedi- 
ately ready  for  business.  There  remained  much 
work  to  be  done  in  completing  the  track  and  the 
roadbed,  station  buildings,  equipment,  and  the 
other  appurtenances  necessary  for  a  going  rail- 
road. The  contractors,  Phelps,  Mattoon  and 
Barnes,  who  also  had  builded  the  Watertown  & 
Borne,  had  unpaid  balances  still  remaining. 
There  had  been  numerous  and  one  or  two  rather 
serious  disagreements  between  the  company  and 
its  contractors.  Finally  these  were  all  settled  by 


74  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

a  final  cash  payment  of  $100,000,  in  addition,  of 
course,  to  what  had  been  paid  before.  In  order 
to  make  this  large  payment — for  that  day,  at  least 
—it  became  necessary  to  bond  the  property  still 
again;  this  time  by  a  second  mortgage — which 
was  made  around  $200,000,  so  that  the  road  might 
be  made  completely  ready  for  business. 

Details  which  indicate  the  rapidly  approaching 
time  of  such  completion  soon  begin  to  appear  in 
the  minutes.  A  committee  is  appointed  to  pro- 
cure a  Superintendent — George  B.  Phelps,  of 
Watertown,  was  appointed  to  this  post.  Freight 
agents  are  directed  to  turn  over  their  receipts  to 
the  Treasurer  weekly,  ticket  agents  daily.  The 
Board  took  its  business  seriously  and  several 
meetings  about  this  time  were  called  for  seven, 
half  past  seven  and  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
although,  of  course,  this  might  mean  that  the  rail- 
road business  was  gotten  out  of  the  way  early, 
leaving  the  day  free  for  regular  occupations. 
The  vexed  question  of  the  station  grounds  at 
Gouverneur  was  settled  definitely  early  in  1857, 
and  the  executive  committee  was  instructed  to 
erect  on  the  "station  grounds  at  Gouverneur  a 
building  similar  to  the  one  at  Antwerp  in  the 
speediest  and  most  economical  manner. "  To  this 
day  the  Antwerp  building  survives,  but  Gouver- 
neur, like  Potsdam,  for  more  than  a  decade  past 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  75 

has  rejoiced  in  the  possession  of  a  new  and  ornate 
passenger  station. 

It  was  not  until  June,  1857,  that  a  definite  pas- 
senger service  was  established  upon  the  line  from 
Watertown,  where  it  connected  with  the  trains 
of  the  W.  &  R,  and  thus  to  the  present  village  of 
Norwood,  seventy-five  miles  distant.  It  is  worth 
noting  here  that  a  few  years  after  this  was  accom- 
plished a  branch  line  was  constructed  from  a 
point  two  miles  distant  from  the  old  village  of 
DeKalb,  and  destined  to  be  known  to  future  fame 
as  DeKalb  Junction,  straight  through  to  Ogdens- 
burgh, but  eighteen  miles  distant.  DeKalb  Junc- 
tion also  had  a  famous  hotel  which  for  many 
years  "fed"  the  trains  and  "fed"  them  well.  In 
its  earlier  days  this  tavern  was  known  as  the 
Goulding  House;  in  more  recent  years,  however, 
it  has  been  the  Hurley  House,  so  named  from  the 
late  Daniel  Hurley,  one  of  the  most  popular  and 
successful  hotelmen  in  all  the  North  Country. 

The  passenger  trains  of  the  Potsdam  road  were 
operated  out  of  the  new  station  in  Watertown, 
just  back  of  the  Woodruff  House — which  we  shall 
see  in  another  chapter.  For  a  time  there  was  no 
train  service  for  travelers  between  its  station  and 
that  of  the  Rome  road  at  the  foot  of  Stone  Street, 
the  transfer  between  them  being  made  by  stages. 


76  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

But  soon  this  was  rectified  and  the  one  o'clock 
train,  north  from  Watertown,  allowed  consider- 
ably more  than  an  hour  for  connection  after  the 
arrival  of  the  train  from  Eome,  which  gave  abun- 
dant time  for  the  consumption  of  one  of  Proprie- 
tor Dorsey's  fine  meals  at  the  Woodruff.  It  was 
a  good  meal  and  not  high-priced.  The  charge  per 
day  for  three  of  them  and  a  night's  lodging 
thrown  in  was  fixed  at  but  $1.50. 

The  early  train  which  left  Watertown  at  sharp 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning — afterwards  it  was 
fixed  at  a  slightly  later  hour — made  connection  at 
Potsdam  Junction  with  the  through  train  on  the 
Northern  for  Rouse's  Point  and,  going  by  that 
roundabout  way,  a  traveler  might  hope  to  reach 
Montreal  in  the  evening  of  the  day  that  he  had 
left  Watertown — if  he  enjoyed  good  fortune. 
Whilst  upon  the  completion  of  the  short  line  a  few 
years  later  between  DeKalb  Junction  and  Ogdens- 
burgh,  one  could  reach  the  Canadian  metrop- 
olis in  an  even  more  direct  fashion,  by  the  ferry 
steamer  Transit  to  Prescott,  and  then  over  the 
Grand  Trunk  Eailway,  just  coming  into  the  hey- 
day of  its  fame.  Watertown  no  longer  was  cut 
off  from  rail  communication  with  the  North. 

The  Potsdam  &  Watertown  though  now  fairly 
launched,  operating  trains,  and,  from  all  external 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  77 

evidences  at  least,  doing  a  fair  business,  never- 
theless was  grievously  burdened  with  its  grave 
financial  difficulties.  On  May  16,  1857,  a  special 
finance  committee,  consisting  of  Messrs.  Phelps, 
Cooper  and  Goulding,  was  appointed  with  power 
to  carry  along  the  company's  growing  floating 
debt,  and  in  October  of  that  selfsame  year  the 
President  joined  with  them  in  their  appeals  to  the 
creditors  to  have  a  little  more  patience.  In  the 
following  spring  the  Directors  discussed  the  pro- 
priety of  asking  the  Legislature  for  an  act  exempt- 
ing from  taxation  all  railroads  in  the  state  that 
were  not  paying  their  dividends. 

The  Potsdam  road  certainly  was  not  paying  its 
dividends.  Not  only  this,  but,  on  May  26,  1859, 
interest  on  the  second  mortgage,  being  unpaid  for 
six  months,  the  trustees  under  the  mortgage  took 
possession  of  the  property  and  the  Directors  in 
meeting  approved  of  the  action.  Such  a  step 
quite  naturally  agitated  the  first  mortgage 
holders,  who  began  to  protest.  In  August,  1859, 
the  P.  &  W.  Board  disclaimed  any  purpose  what- 
soever to  repudiate  the  payment  of  principal  or 
interest  upon  its  first  mortgage  bonds,  or  its  con- 
tingent obligation  to  the  Watertown  &  Eome  Bail- 
road.  It  invited  the  Directors  of  that  larger  and 
more  prosperous  road  to  attend  a  joint  meeting 
wherein  the  earnings  of  the  Potsdam  &  Water- 


78  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

town  might  be  applied  to  the  payment  of  the  cou- 
pons upon  its  first  mortgage  bonds.  There  was  a 
growing  community  of  interest  between  the  two 
roads,  anyway.  The  one  was  the  natural  comple- 
ment to  the  other.  Such  a  community  of  interest 
led,  quite  naturally,  to  a  merger  of  the  properties. 
In  June,  1860,  it  was  announced  that  the  Water- 
town  &  Rome  had  gained  financial  control  of  the 
Potsdam  &  Watertown.  Soon  after  the  Rome, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  was  officially  born  and 
a  new  chapter  in  the  development  of  Northern 
New  York  was  begun. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  B.  W.  &  O. 

THAT  the  Watertown  &  Eome  and  the  Pots- 
dam &  Watertown  Railroads  would  have 
merged  in  any  event  was,  from  the  first,  almost  a 
foregone  conclusion.  Their  interests  were  too 
common  to  escape  such  inevitable  consolidation. 
The  actual  union  of  the  two  properties  was  accom- 
plished in  the  very  early  sixties  (July  4,  1861) 
and  for  the  merged  properties — the  new  trunkline 
of  the  North  Country,  if  you  please — the  rather 
euphonious  and  embracing  title  of  the  Rome, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  was  chosen. 
It  was  at  that  time  that  the  branch  was  built  from 
DeKalb  to  Ogdensburgh.  A  combined  directorate 
was  chosen  from  the  governing  bodies  of  the  two 
merged  roads — I  shall  not  take  the  trouble  to  set 
it  down  here  and  now — and  Mr.  Pierrepont  was 
chosen  as  the  President  of  the  new  property,  with 
Marcellus  Massey,  of  Brooklyn,  as  its  Vice-Presi- 
dent, R.  E.  Hungerford  as  Secretary  and  Treas- 

79 


80  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

urer,  H.  T.  Frary  as  General  Ticket  Agent,  C.  C. 
Case  as  General  Freight  Agent  and  Addison  Day 
as  General  Superintendent.  Whilst  the  general 
offices  of  the  company  were  in  Watertown,  its 
shops  and  general  operating  offices,  at  that  time, 
were  in  Rome.  It  was  in  this  latter  city  that  Ad- 
dison Day  was  first  located.  Day  was  a  resident 
of  Rochester.  He  refused  to  remove  his  home 
from  that  city,  but  spent  each  week-end  with  his 
family  there. 

He  was  a  conspicuous  figure  upon  the  property, 
coming  as  the  successor  to  a  number  of  superin- 
tendents, each  of  whom  had  served  a  compara- 
tively short  time  in  office — Robert  B.  Doxtater, 
Job  Collamer  and  Carlos  Dutton,  were  Addison 
Day's  predecessors  as  Superintendents  upon  the 
property.  These  men  had  been  local  in  their  op- 
portunity. To  Day  was  given  a  real  job ;  that  of 
successfully  operating  189  miles  of  a  pretty  well- 
built  and  essential  railroad.  Yet  his  annual 
salary  was  fixed  at  but  $2500,  as  compared  with 
the  $4000  paid  to  Dutton.  Later  however  Day 
was  raised  to  $3000  a  year. 

The  main  shops  of  the  company,  as  I  have  just 
said,  were  then  situated  in  Rome.  They  were  well 
equipped  for  that  day  and  employed  about  one 
hundred  men,  under  William  H.  Griggs,  the  road's 
first  Master  Mechanic.  A  smaller  shop,  of  ap- 


ill-Ill? 


WATERTOWX  IN  1865 

Showing  the  First  Passenger  Station  of  the  Potsdam 
Watertown.     Taken  from  the  Woodruff  House  Tower. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  81 

proximately  one-half  the  capacity  and  used 
chiefly  for  engine  repairs  and  freight-car  con- 
struction, was  located  at  Watertown,  just  back  of 
the  old  engine  house  on  Coffeen  Street. 

But  Watertown 's  chief  comfort  was  in  its  pas- 
senger station,  which  stood  in  the  rear  of  the  well- 
famed  Woodruff  House.  Norris  M.  Woodruff 
had  completed  his  hotel  at  about  the  same  time 
that  the  railroad  first  reached,  Watertown.  It 
was  a  huge  structure — reputed  to  be  at  that  time 
the  largest  hotel  in  the  United  States  west  of  New 
York  City;  and  even  the  far-famed  Astor  House 
of  that  metropolis,  had  no  dining-salon  which  in 
height  and  beauty  quite  equalled  the  dining-room 
of  the  Woodruff  House.  Mr.  Woodruff  had  given 
the  railroad  the  site  for  its  passenger  station  in 
the  rear  of  his  hotel,  on  condition  that  the  chief 
passenger  terminal  of  the  company  should  forever 
be  maintained  there,  which  has  been  done  ever 
since.  Yet  the  chief  passenger  station  of  the 
E.  W.  &  0.  of  1861  was  a  simple  affair  indeed. 
Builded  in  brick  it  afterwards  became  the  wing 
of  the  larger  station  that  was  torn  down  to  be  re- 
placed by  the  present  station  a  decade  ago.  It 
was  not  until  1870  that  the  three  story  "addition" 
to  the  original  station  was  built  and  the  first  sta- 
tion restaurant  at  Watertown  opened,  in  charge 
of  Col.  A.  T.  Dunton,  from  Bellows  Falls,  Vt. 


82  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

After  the  fashion  of  the  time,  its  opening  was  sig- 
nalized by  a  banquet. 

In  front  of  me  there  lies  a  very  early  time-table 
of  the  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  Rail- 
road. It  bears  the  date,  April  20,  1863,  and  ap- 
parently is  the  twrelfth  to  be  issued  in  the  history 
of  the  road.  It  is  signed  by  Addison  Day,  as 
Superintendent. 

On  this  sheet,  the  chief  northbound  train,  No. 
7,  Express  and  Mail,  left  Rome  at  four  o'clock 
each  afternoon,  reaching  Watertown  at  7 :05  p.  m., 
and  leaving  there  twenty  minutes  later,  arrived  at 
Ogdensburgh  at  10:30  p.  m.  The  return  move- 
ment of  this  train,  was  as  No.  2,  leaving  Ogdens- 
burgh at  4:25  o'clock  in  the  morning,  passing 
Watertown  at  7 :10  o  'clock  and  reaching  Rome  at 
10 :35  a.  m.  In  addition  to  this  double  movement 
each  day,  there  was  a  similar  one  of  accommoda- 
tion trains;  No.  1,  leaving  Rome  at  2:35  o'clock 
each  morning,  arriving  and  leaving  Watertown  at 
6:20  and  6:40  a.  m.,  respectively,  and  reaching 
Ogdensburgh  at  10 :10  a.  m.  As  No.  8,  the  accom- 
modation returned,  leaving  Ogdensburgh  at  4:30 
p.  m.,  passing  Watertown  at  8 :20  p.  m.,  and  arriv- 
ing at  Rome  at  12 :20  a.  m.  Apparently  folk  who 
traveled  in  those  days  cared  little  about  incon- 
venient hours  of  arrival  or  departure. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  83 

There  were  connecting  trains  upon  both  the 
Cape  Vincent  and  the  Potsdam  Junction  branches 
— the  branch  from  Richland  to  Oswego  was  just 
under  construction — and  a  scheduled  freight  train 
over  the  entire  line  each  day.  Yet  there,  still,  was 
an  almost  entire  absence  of  mid-day  passenger 
service. 

Gradually  this  condition  of  things  must  have 
improved;  for  in  Hamilton  Child's  Jefferson 
County  Gazetteer  and  Business  Directory,  for 
1866, 1  find  the  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh 
advertising  three  fast  passenger  trains  a  day  in 
each  direction  over  the  entire  main  line,  in  addi- 
tion to  connections,  not  only  for  Cape  Vincent  and 
for  Potsdam  Junction,  but  also  over  the  new 
branch  from  Richland  through  Pulaski  to  Oswego. 
Pulaski,  humiliated  in  the  beginning  by  the  re- 
fusal of  the  Watertown  &  Rome  to  lay  its  rails 
within  four  miles  of  that  county-seat  village, 
finally  had  received  the  direct  rail  connection,  that 
she  had  so  long  coveted. 

In  that  same  advertisement  there  first  appears 
announcement  of  through  sleeping-cars,  between 
Watertown  and  New  York,  an  arrangement  which 
continued  for  a  number  of  years  thereafter,  then 
was  abandoned  for  many  years,  but,  under  the 
bitter  protests  of  the  citizens  of  Watertown  and 
other  Northern  New  York  communities,  was 


84  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

finally  restored  in  1891  as  an  all-the-year  service. 

Upon  the  ancient  time  table  of  1863  there  ap- 
pear the  names  of  the  old  stations,  the  most  of 
which  have  come  down  unchanged  until  to-day. 
One  of  them  has  disappeared  both  in  name  and 
existence,  Centreville,  two  miles  south  of  Rich- 
land,  while  the  adjacent  station  of  Albion  long 
since  became  Altmar.  Potsdam  Junction  we  have 
already  seen  as  Norwood,  while  nice  dignified  old 
Sanford's  Corners  long  since  suffered  the  un- 
speakable insult  of  being  renamed,  by  some  latter-, 
day  railroad  official,  Calcium.  A  similar  indig- 
nity at  that  time  was  heaped  upon  Adams  Centre, 
being  known  officially  for  a  time  as  Edison ! 

The  Centre  rebelled.  It  had  no  quarrel  with 
Mr.  Edison.  On  the  contrary,  it  held  the  highest 
esteem  for  that  distinguished  inventor.  But  for 
the  life  of  it,  it  could  not  see  why  the  name  of 
a  nice  old-fashioned  Seventh-Day-Baptist  town 
should  be  sacrificed  for  the  mere  convenience  of 
a  telegrapher's  code.  It  was  quite  bad  enough 
when  Union  Square,  over  on  the  Syracuse  line, 
was  forced,  willy-nilly,  to  become  Maple  View, 
and  Holmesville,  Fernwood.  Neither  were  the 
marvels  of  the  lexicographers  of  the  Postoffice  De- 
partment, under  which  all  manner  of  strange 
changes  were  made  in  the  spelling  of  old  North 
Country  names  (think  of  Sackett's  Harbor,  time- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  85 

honored  government  military  and  naval  station, 
reduced  to  a  miserable  "Sacket!")  germane  to 
Adams  Centre's  problem.  Adams  Centre  it  was 
christened  in  the  beginning,  and  Adams  Centre  it 
proposed  to  remain.  And  after  a  brief  but  brisk 
fight  with  railroad  and  postoffice  officials,  it  suc- 
ceeded in  regaining  its  birthright. 

Early  in  June,  1872,  William  C.  Pierrepont  re- 
tired as  President  of  the  Eome,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh  and  was  succeeded  by  Marcellus 
Massey,  the  third  holder  of  that  important  post 
of  honor  in  the  North  Country.  Mr.  Massey,  al- 
though for  the  greater  part  of  his  life  also  a  resi- 
dent of  Brooklyn,  was  of  Jefferson  County  stock, 
a  brother  of  Hart  and  of  Solon  Massey.  He  gave 
his  whole  time  and  interest  to  the  steady  upbuild- 
ing of  the  road.  Gradually  it  was  coming  to  a 
point  where  it  was  considered,  without  exception, 
the  best  operated  railroad  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  if  not  in  the  entire  land.  Sometimes  it  was 
called  the  Nickel  Plate,  although  that  name  now- 
adays is  generally  reserved  for  the  brisk  trunk 
line — officially  the  New  York,  Chicago  &  St.  Louis 
—that  operates  from  Buffalo,  through  Cleveland 
to  Chicago. 

The  E.  W.  &  0.  was  in  fact  at  that  time  an  ex- 
tremely high-grade  railroad  property;  it  was  the 


86  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

pride  of  Watertown,  of  the  entire  North  Country 
as  well.  Mr.  Massey  used  to  say  that  as  a  divi- 
dend payer — its  annual  ten  per  cent  came  as 
steadily  as  clock-striking — his  road  could  not  be 
beat ;  particularly  in  a  day  when  many  railroad  in- 
vestments were  regarded  as  very  shaky  things  in- 
deed. The  crash  of  the  Oswego  Midland,  which 
was  to  come  a  few  years  later,  was  to  add  nothing 
to  the  confidence  of  investors  in  this  form  of  in- 
vestment. 

Steadily  Mr.  Massey  and  his  co-workers  sought 
to  perfect  the  property.  The  service  was  a  very 
especial  consideration  in  their  minds.  A  moment 
ago  we  saw  the  time  table  of  1863  in  brief,  now 
consider  how  it  had  steadily  been  improved,  in 
the  course  of  another  eight  years. 

In  1871  the  passenger  service  of  the  E.  W.  &  0. 
consisted  of  two  trains  through  from  Eome  to 
Ogdensburgh  without  change.  The  first  left 
Eome  at  4:30  a.  m.,  passed  through  Watertown 
at  7:38  a.  m.,  and  arrived  at  Ogdensburgh  at 
11 :15  a.  m.  The  second  left  Eome  at  1 :00  p.  m., 
passed  through  Watertown  at  4 :17  p.  m.,  and  ar- 
rived at  Ogdensburgh  at  7:10  p.  m.  Eeturning 
the  first  of  these  trains  left  Ogdensburgh  at  6 :08 
a.  m.,  passed  through  Watertown  at  9:20  a.  m., 
and  arrived  at  Eome  at  12 :10  p.  m. :  the  second 
left  Ogdensburgh  at  3:00  p.  m.,  passed  through 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  87 

Water-town  at  6 :35  p.  m.,  and  reached  Eome  and 
the  New  York  Central  at  9:05  p.  m.  The  simi- 
larity between  these  trains  and  those  upon  the 
present  time-card,  the  long  established  Seven  and 
One  and  Four  and  Eight,  is  astonishing.  Put  an 
important  train  but  once  upon  a  time  card,  and 
seemingly  it  is  hard  to  get  it  off  again. 

In  addition  to  these  four  important  through 
trains  there  were  others :  The  Watertown  Ex- 
press, leaving  Rome  at  5 :30  p.  m.  and  "dying"  at 
Watertown  at  9 :05  p.  m.,  was  the  precursor  of  the 
present  Number  Three.  The  return  movement  of 
this  train  was  as  the  New  York  Express,  leaving 
Watertown  at  8:10  a,  m.  and  reaching  Eome  at 
11:35  a.  m.  There  were  also  three  trains  a  day 
in  each  direction  on  the  Cape  Vincent,  and  Oswego 
branches  and  two  on  the  one  between  DeKalb  and 
Potsdam  Junctions. 

For  a  railroad  to  render  real  service  it  must 
have,  not  alone  good  track — in  those  early  days  the 
Rome  road,  as  it  was  known  colloquially,  gave 
great  and  constant  attention  to  its  right  of  way — 
but  good  engines.  Up  to  about  1870  these  were 
exclusively  wood-burners,  many  of  them  weigh- 
ing not  more  than  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  tons 
each.  They  were  of  a  fairly  wide  variety  of  type. 
While  the  output  of  the  Rome  Locomotive  Works 


88 


The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 


was  always  favored,  there  were  numbers  of  en- 
gines from  the  Rhode  Island,  the  Taunton  and 
the  Schenectady  Works. 

Thirty-eight  of  these  wood-burning  engines 
formed  the  motive-power  equipment  of  the  Rome 
road  in  the  spring  of  1869.  Their  names — loco- 
motives in  those  days  invariably  were  named — 
were  as  follows : 


1. 

Watertown 

20. 

Potsdam 

2. 

Rome 

21. 

Ontario 

3. 

Adams 

22. 

Montreal 

4. 

Kingston 

23. 

New  York 

6. 

O.  Hungerford 

24. 

Ogdensburgh 

6. 

Col.  Edwin  Kirby 

25. 

Oswego 

7. 

Norris  Woodruff 

26. 

D.  DeWitt 

8. 

Camden 

27. 

D.  Utley 

9. 

J.  L.  Grant 

28. 

M.  Massey 

10. 

Job  Collamer 

29. 

H.  Moore 

11. 

Jefferson 

30. 

C.  Comstock 

12. 

R.  B.  Doxtater 

31. 

S.  F.  Phelps 

13. 

0.  V.  Brainard 

32. 

Col.  Wm.  Lord 

14. 

North  Star 

33. 

H.  Alexander,  Jr. 

15. 

T.  H.  Camp 

34. 

Roxbury 

16. 

Silas  Wright 

35. 

Com.  Perry 

17. 

Antwerp 

36. 

C.  E.  Bill 

18. 

Wm.  C.  Pierrepont 

37. 

Gen.  S.  D.  Hungerford 

19. 

St.  Lawrence 

38. 

Gardner  Colby 

Of  this  considerable  fleet  the  Antwerp  was  per- 
haps the  best  known.  Oddly  enough  she  was  the 
engine  that  the  directors  of  the  Potsdam  &  Water- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  89 

town  had  purchased  from  "  Vilas,  of  Plattsburgh. " 
She  was  then  called  the  Plattsburgh,  but  upon  her 
coming  to  the  E.  W.  &  0.  she  was  already  re- 
named Antwerp.  Inside  connected,  like  the  0. 
Hunger  ford,  she  also  was  a  product  of  the  old 
Taunton  works  down  in  Eastern  Massachusetts. 
Her  bright  red  driving  wheels  made  her  a  con- 
spicuous figure  on  the  line. 

The  Camden  was  also  an  inside  connected  en- 
gine. The  Ontario  and  the  Potsdam  and  the 
Montreal  were  other  acquisitions  from  the  Pots- 
dam &  Watertown.  The  Potsdam  had  a  picture 
of  a  lion  painted  upon  her  front  boiler  door,  the 
work  of  some  gifted  local  artist,  unknown  to  pres- 
ent fame.  She  came  to  the  North  Country  as  the 
Chicopee  from  the  Springfield  Locomotive  Works, 
and  with  her  came,  as  engineer  and  fireman,  re- 
spectively, the  famous  Haynes  brothers,  Orville 
and  Rhett.  Henry  Batchelder,  a  brother  of  the 
renowned  Ben,  who  comes  later  into  this  narra- 
tive, and  who  is  now  a  resident  of  Potsdam,  well 
recalls  the  first  train  that  made  the  trip  between 
that  village  and  Canton.  Made  up  of  flat-cars 
with  temporary  plank  seats  atop  of  them,  and 
hauled  by  the  Potsdam,  it  brought  excursionists 
into  Canton  to  enjoy  the  St.  Lawrence  County 
Fair,  That  was  in  the  year  of  1855,  and  the  rail- 


90  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

road  was  only  completed  to  a  point  some  two 
miles  east  of  Canton.  From  that  point  the 
travelers  walked  into  town. 

Mr.  Batchelder  also  remembers  that  the  engi- 
neers and  firemen  of  that  early  day  invariably 
wore  white  shirts  upon  their  locomotives.  The 
old  wood-burners  were  never  so  hard  as  the  coal- 
burners  on  the  apparel  of  their  crews.  They  were 
wonderful  little  engines  and,  as  we  shall  see  in  a 
moment,  had  a  remarkable  ability  for  speed  with 
their  trains.  The  Antwerp  in  particular  had 
rare  speed.  Those  red  drivers  of  hers  were  the 
largest  upon  the  line.  And  when  Jeff  Wells  was 
at  her  throttle  and  those  red  heels  of  hers  were 
digging  into  the  iron,  men  reached  for  their 
watches. 

•          •••••• 

No  true  history  of  the  Rome,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh  might  ever  be  written  without  men- 
tion of  Jefferson  B.  Wells.  In  truth  he  was  the 
commodore  of  the  old  locomotive  fleet.  For  skill 
and  daring  and  precision  in  the  handling  of  an  en- 
gine he  was  never  excelled.  Although  bearing  a 
certain  uncanny  reputation  for  being  in  accidents, 
he  was  blamed  for  none  of  them.  Whether  at  the 
lever  of  his  two  favorites,  the  T.  H.  Camp  and  the 
Antwerp,  or  in  later  years  as  captain  of  the  "44" 
he  was  in  his  element  in  the  engine-cab.  The 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  91 

"44"  spent  most  of  the  later  years  of  her  life,  and 
of  Wells',  in  service  upon  the  Cape  Vincent 
branch.  I  can  remember  it  standing  at  Water- 
town  Junction,  sending  an  occasional  soft  ring  of 
grayish  smoke  off  into  the  blue  skies  above.  And 
distinctly  can  I  recall  Jeff  Wells  himself,  a  large- 
eyed,  tallish  man,  fond  of  a  good  joke,  or  a  good 
story,  a  man  with  a  keen  zest  in  life  itself.  He 
was  a  good  poker  player.  It  is  related  of  him, 
that  one  night,  while  engaged  in  a  pleasant  game 
at  Cape  Vincent,  word  came  from  Watertown 
ordering  him  to  his  engine  for  a  special  run  down 
to  the  county-seat  and  back. 

For  a  moment  old  Jeff  hesitated.  He  liked 
poker.  But  then  the  trained  soul  of  the  rail- 
roader triumphed.  He  threw  his  hand  down  upon 
the  table — it  was  a  good  hand,  too — and  turning 
toward  the  call-boy  said: 

"Son,  Til  be  at  the  round  house  within  ten 
minutes. ' ' 

That  was  Wells ;  best  at  home  in  the  engine-cab, 
and,  I  think  no  engine-cab  was  ever  quite  the 
same  to  him  as  that  of  the  speedy  Antwerp,  with 
John  Leasure  on  the  fireman's  side  of  the  cab — 
Leasure  was  pretty  sure  to  have  previously  be- 
decked the  Antwerp  with  a  vast  variety  of  cedar 
boughs,  flags  and  the  like — and  the  President's 


92  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

car  on  behind.  This,  in  later  years,  was  sure  to 
be  the  old  parlor-car,  Watertown,  gayly  furbished 
for  the  occasion.  This  special  was  sure  to  be 
given  the  right-of-way  over  all  other  trains  on 
the  line  that  day;  all  the  switch-points  being 
ordered  spiked,  in  order  to  avoid  the  possibility 
of  accidents.  Yet,  on  at  least  one  occasion — at 
DeKalb  Junction — this  practice  nearly  led  to  a 
serious  mishap.  Mr.  Massey's  train  had  swept 
past  the  little  depot  there  and  around  the  curve 
onto  the  Ogdensburgh  branch  at  seventy  miles  an 
hour.  For  once  there  had  been  a  miscalculation. 
The  little  train  veered  terribly  as  it  struck  the 
branch-line  rails ;  the  directors  were  thrown  from 
their  comfortable  seats  in  the  parlor-car,  and  poor 
Billy  Lanfear,  of  Cape  Vincent,  the  fireman,  was 
nearly  carromed  from  his  place  in  the  cab.  At 
the  last  fractional  part  of  a  second  he  succeeded 
in  catching  hold  of  the  engineer's  window  as  he 
started  to  shoot  out. 

The  wood-burners  were  not  supposed  to  be  fast 
engines — a  great  many  of  them  in  the  early  days 
of  the  E.  W.  &  0.  had  small  drivers  and  this  was 
an  added  handicap  to  their  speed.  But  sixty  miles 
an  hour  was  not  out  of  the  question  for  them. 
Mr.  Richard  Holden,  of  Watertown,  who  started 
his  railroad  career  in  the  eating-house  of  the  old 
station  in  that  city,  still  recalls  several  trips  that 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  93 

he  made  in  the  cab  of  the  engines  on  the  Cape 
branch.  It  had  a  fairly  close  schedule  at  the 
best,  connecting  at  Watertown  Junction  with 
Number  Three  up  from  Borne  in  the  afternoon, 
and  turning  and  coming  back  in  time  to  make 
connections  with  Number  Six  down  the  line.  It 
frequently  would  happen  that  Three  would  be  fif- 
teen or  twenty  minutes  late,  which  would  mean  a 
good  deal  of  hustling  on  the  part  of  the  Cape  train 
to  make  her  fifty  mile  run  and  turn-around  and 
still  avoid  delaying  Number  Six.  But  both  Casey 
Eldredge  and  Chris  Delaney,  the  engineers  on  the 
branch  at  that  time,  could  do  it:  Jeff  Wells  was 
still  on  the  main  line  and  unwilling  then  to  ac- 
cept the  easier  Cape  branch  run,  which  afterwards 
he  was  very  glad  to  take. 

"The  air-brake  was  unknown  at  that  time," 
says  Mr.  Holden,  ' '  all  trains  being  stopped  by  the 
brakeman,  assisted  by  the  fireman,  a  brake  being 
upon  the  tender  of  all  the  engines.  When  some 
of  these  fast  trains  were  running,  I  used  to  take 
a  great  delight  in  riding  on  the  engine,  and  re- 
member the  running-time  of  the  trip  was  thirty- 
five  minutes,  which  included  stops  at  Brownville, 
Limerick,  Chaumont  and  Three  Mile  Bay,  my 
recollection  being  that  the  station  at  Eosiere  was 
not  open  at  that  time.  Deducting  the  time  used 
for  stops  the  actual  running  time  would  average 


94  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

sixty  miles  an  hour.  All  engines  used  on  pas- 
senger trains  had  small  driving-wheels  and  it  will 
be  remembered  that  all  passenger  trains,  except 
One  and  Six,  consisted  of  but  a  baggage-car  and 
two  coaches,  consequently  an  engine  could  get  a 
train  under  good  headway  much  faster  than  en- 
gines with  the  heavy  equipment  in  use  at  the  pres- 
ent time. ' ' 

In  all  these  statements  in  regard  to  the  speed 
of  the  trains  upon  the  early  E.  W.  &  0.  it  should 
not  be  forgotten  that  for  the  first  twelve  or  thir- 
teen years  of  the  road's  existence,  it  had  to  worry 
along  without  telegraphic  or  any  other  form  of 
rapid  interstation  communication.  It  was  not  un- 
til 1863  or  1864  that  its  trains  were  despatched 
upon  telegraphic  orders;  and  even  these  were  of 
the  crudest  possible  form.  The  "  Nineteen "  had 
not  yet  been  evolved.  A  slip  of  paper  torn  from 
the  handiest  writing  block  and  scribbled  in  fairly 
indecipherable  hieroglyphics  was  the  train  order 
of  those  beginnings  of  modern  railroading.  The 
telegraph  order,  instead  of  being  a  real  help  to 
the  locomotive  engineer,  was  apt  to  be  one  of  the 
puzzles  and  the  banes  of  his  existence. 

It  was  in  1866  that  a  railroad  telegraph  office 
was  first  established  at  Watertown  Junction  and 
D.  N.  Bosworth  engaged  as  despatcher  there. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  95 

According  to  the  recollections  of  Mr.  W.  D.  Han- 
chette,  of  that  city,  who  is  the  nestor  of  all  things 
telegraphic  in  Northern  New  York,  Bos  worth  was 
soon  followed  by  a  Mr.  Warner,  who  was  not, 
himself,  a  telegraphic  operator,  but  who  had  to 
be  assisted  by  one.  A  Canadian,  named  Monk, 
was  one  of  the  first  of  these.  Warner  was  finally 
succeeded  as  despatcher  at  Watertown  Junction 
by  N.  B.  Hine,  a  brother  of  Omar  A.  Hine  and  of 
A.  C.  Hine — all  of  them  much  identified  with  the 
history  of  the  Eome  road.  N.  B.  Hine  remained 
with  the  road  for  a  long  season  of  years  as  its 
train  despatcher,  eventually  moving  his  office  from 
the  Junction  to  the  enlarged  passenger  station 
back  of  the  Woodruff  House  in  Watertown. 

He  learned  his  trade  in  the  summer  before  Fort 
Sumter  was  fired  upon ;  using  a  small,  home-made, 
wooden  key  at  his  father's  farm,  somewhere  back 
of  DeKalb.  A  year  after  he  had  obtained  his 
railroad  job,  Omar  Hine  was  appointed  operator 
at  Eichland,  opening  the  first  telegraph  office  at 
that  place,  and  becoming  its  station  agent  as  well. 
From  Eichland  he  was  promoted  to  the  more  im- 
portant, similar  post  at  Norwood.  When  he  left 
Norwood,  Mr.  Hine  became  a  conductor  upon  the 
main  line.  In  that  service  he  remained  until  the 
comparatively  recent  year  of  1887. 

About  the  time  that  he  was  assigned  to  Eich- 


96  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

land,  his  brother,  A.  C.  Hine,  was  appointed  oper- 
ator and  helper  at  the  neighboring  station  of 
Sandy  Creek.  So  from  a  single  North  Country 
farm  sprang  three  expert  telegraphers  and  rail- 
roaders. When  they  began  their  career,  but  a 
single  wire  stretched  all  the  way  from  Watertown 
to  Ogdensburgh;  and  the  movement  of  trains  by 
telegraph  was  occasional,  not  regular  nor  stand- 
ardized. A  second  wire  was  strung  the  entire 
length  of  the  line  in  the  fall  of  1866  and  in  the 
following  spring,  Mr.  Bosworth  began  the  difficult 
task  of  trying  to  work  a  systematic  method  of 
telegraphic  despatching,  and  gradually  brought 
the  engineers  of  the  road  into  a  real  cooperation 
with  his  plan,  a  thing  much  more  difficult  to  ac- 
complish than  might  be  at  first  imagined.  Those 
old-time  engineers  of  the  road  were  good  men ;  but 
some  of  them  were  a  trifle  "sot"  in  their  ways. 
Their  habits  were  not  things  easily  changed. 

The  full  list  of  these  old-time  engineers  of  the 
R.  W.  &  0.  would  run  to  a  considerable  length. 
Remember  again  Orve  Haynes — something  of  an 
engine-runner  was  he — who  afterwards  went  down 
to  St.  Louis  to  become  Master  Mechanic  upon  the 
Iron  Mountain  road.  The  J.  L.  Grant  was  named 
after  a  Master  Mechanic  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.,  who 
eventually  became  an  assistant  superintendent. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  97 

The  Grant  was  in  steady  use  upon  the  Cape 
branch  prior  to  the  coming  of  the  "44."  A  good 
engineer  in  those  days  was  a  good  mechanic — in- 
variably. Repair  facilities  were  few  and  far  be- 
tween. The  ingenuity  and  quick  wit  of  the  man 
in  the  engine-cab  more  than  once  was  called  into 
play.  Engine  failures  were  no  less  frequent  then 
than  now. 

Ben.  F.  Batchelder  first  came  to  fame  as  a  well- 
known  engineer  of  that  early  decade;  John  Skin- 
ner was  another.  There  was  D.  L.  Van  Allen  and 
Louis  Bouran  and  John  Mortimer  and  Casey 
Eldredge  and  Asa  Eowell  and  old  ' '  Parse "  Hines, 
and  George  Schell  and  Jim  Cheney — that  list  does 
indeed  run  to  lengths.  In  a  later  generation  came 
Nathaniel  E.  Peterson  ("Than")  and  Conrad 
Shaler  and  Frank  W.  Smith  and  George  H.  Hazle- 
ton,  and  Frank  Taylor,  and  Charles  Vogel — but 
again  I  must  desist.  This  is  a  history,  not  a 
necrology.  It  is  hardly  fair  to  pick  but  a  few 
names,  out  of  so  many  deserving  ones. 

The  most  of  the  engineers  of  that  day  have 
gone.  A  very  few  remain.  One  of  these  is 
Frank  W.  Smith,  of  Watertown,  who  to-day 
(1922)  has  retired  from  his  engine-cab,  but  re- 
mains one  of  the  expert  billiard  players  in  the 
Lincoln  League  of  that  city. 

Mr.  Smith  entered  upon  his  railroad  career  on 


98  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

November  9,  1866,  at  the  rather  tender  age  of 
seventeen,  as  a  wiper  in  the  old  round  house  in 
Coffeen  Street,  Watertown.  In  those  days  all 
the  engines  upon  the  line  still  were  wood-burners. 
The  most  conspicuous  thing  about  DeKalb  Junc- 
tion in  those  days,  aside  from  the  red  brick  Gould- 
ing  House,  was  the  huge  wood-shed  and  wood-pile 
beyond  the  small  depot,  which  still  stands  there. 
It  was  customary  for  an  engine  to  "wood  up"  at 
Watertown — in  those  days  as  in  these  again,  all 
trains  changed  engines  at  Watertown — and  again 
at  DeKalb  Junction  before  finishing  her  run  into 
Ogdensburgh.  Similarly  upon  the  return  trip, 
she  would  stop  again  at  DeKalb  to  fill  her  tender ; 
which,  in  turn,  would  carry  her  back  to  Watertown 
once  again.  Wood  went  all  too  quickly.  I  re- 
member, sometime  in  the  mid-eighties,  riding 
from  Prescott  to  Ottawa,  upon  the  old  Ottawa  and 
St.  Lawrence  Eailroad,  and  the  wood-burner 
stopping  somewhere  between  those  towns  to  ap- 
pease its  seemingly  insatiable  appetite. 

The  wood-burners  upon  the  E.  W.  &  0.  began  to 
disappear  sometime  about  the  beginnings  of  the 
seventies.  Apparently  the  first  engine  to  have 
her  fire-boxes  changed  to  permit  of  the  use  of  soft 
coal  was  the  C.  Comstock,  which  was  rapidly  fol- 
lowed by  the  Phelps,  the  Lord  and  the  Alexander. 
They  then  had  the  extension  boilers  and  the 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  99 

straight  "  diamond "  stacks.  A  red  band  ran 
around  the  under  flare  of  the  diamond.  About 
that  time  the  road  began  adding  to  its  motive 
power;  new  engines,  among  them  the  Theodore 
Irwin  and  the  C.  Zabriskie,  were  being  purchased, 
and  these  were  all  coal  burners,  bituminous,  of 
course.  When,  as  we  shall  see,  in  a  following 
chapter,  the  Syracuse  Northern  was  merged  into 
the  E.  W.  &  0.,  eight  new  locomotives  were  added 
to  the  growing  fleet  of  the  parent  road;  four 
Hinckleys  and  four  Bloods. 

Even  at  that  time  the  road  was  beginning,  al- 
though in  a  modest  and  somewhat  hesitant  way, 
the  construction  of  its  own  locomotives  in  its  own 
shops.  William  Jackson,  thej  Master  Mechanic 
there  in  1873,  built  the  J.  W.  Moak  and  the  J.  S. 
Farloiv,  both  of  them  coal-burners  for  passenger 
service.  He  was  succeeded  by  Abraham  Close 
who  built  the  Cataract  and  the  Lewiston,  and  the 
Moses  Taylor,  too,  in  1877.  The  following  year 
the  late  George  H.  Hazleton  was  to  become  the 
road's  Master  Mechanic  and  so  to  remain  as  long 
as  it  retained  its  corporate  existence. 
'  In  later  years  there  were  to  come  those  famous 
Mogul  twins,  the  Samson  and  the  Goliath.  There 
were,  as  I  recall  it,  still  two  others  of  these  Mo- 
guls, the  Energy  and  the  Efficiency.  In  a  still 
later  time  the  road,  robbed  of  its  pleasant  per- 


100  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

sonal  way  of  locomotive  nomenclature  and  adopt- 
ing a  strictly  impersonal  method  of  denoting  its 
engines  by  serial  numbers  alone,  was  to  take  an- 
other forward  step  and  bring  in  still  larger 
Moguls;  the  "1,"  "2,"  "3,"  and  "4." 

But  I  anticipate.  I  cannot  close  this  chapter 
without  one  more  reference  to  my  good  friend, 
Frank  W.  Smith.  He  was  an  energetic  little  fel- 
low ;  and  after  some  twenty  months  of  engine  wip- 
ing there  at  Coffeen  Street,  and  all  the  abuse  and 
cuffing  and  chaffing  that  went  with  it,  he  won  an 
honest  promotion  to  the  job  of  a  locomotive  fire- 
man. It  was  a  real  job,  real  responsibility  and 
real  pay,  thirty-nine  dollars  a  month.  Yet  this 
job  faded  when  he  became  an  engineer.  Job  en- 
vied of  all  other  jobs.  How  the  boys  would 
crowd  around  the  N orris  Woodruff  at  Adams  de- 
pot, at  Gouverneur,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  way 
along  the  line  and  feast  their  eyes  upon  Frank 
Smith  up  there  in  the  neat  cab,  that  so  quickly 
came  to  look  like  home  to  him!  Fifty  dollars  a 
month  pay!  Overtime!  Of  course  not.  Agree- 
ments! Once  more,  no.  This  was  nearly  fifteen 
years  ahead  of  that  day  when  the  engineers  upon 
the  Central  Railroad  of  New  Jersey  were  to 
formulate  the  first  of  these  perplexing  things. 

But  a  good  engine,  a  good  job  and  good  pay. 
They  had  the  pleasant  habit  of  assigning  a  crew 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  101 

to  a  definite  engine  in  those  days,  and  that  piece 
of  motive  power  invariably  became  their  pet  and 
pride.  A  good  job  was  not  only  an  honest  one, 
but  one  of  a  considerable  distinction.  And  fifty 
dollars  a  month  was  not  bad  pay,  when  cheese  was 
eight  cents  a  pound  and  butter  seven,  and  a  kind 
friend  apt  to  give  you  all  the  eggs  that  you  could 
take  home  in  the  top  of  your  hat.  Remuneration, 
in  its  last  analysis  is  forever  a  comparative  thing 
—and  nothing  more. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  R.  W.  &  O.  PROSPERS — AND  EXPANDS 

T  N  the  mid-seventies  the  young  city  of  Water- 
•*•  town  was  entering  upon  a  rare  era  in  which 
culture  and  great  prosperity  were  to  be  blended. 
The  men  who  walked  its  pleasant  maple-shaded 
streets  were  real  men,  indeed :  the  Flower  brothers 
— George  W.,  Anson  R.  and  Roswell  P. — George 
B.  Phelps,  Norris  Winslow,  the  Knowlton  brothers 
—John  C.  and  George  W.— Talcott  H.  Camp, 
George  A.  Bagley,  these  were  the  men  who  were 
the  town's  captains  of  industry  of  that  day.  An 
earlier  generation  had  passed  away;  Norris 
Woodruff,  0.  V.  Brainard,  Orville  Hungerford; 
these  men  had  played  their  large  parts  in  the 
upbuilding  of  Watertown  and  were  gone  or  else 
living  in  advanced  years.  A  new  generation 
of  equal  energy  and  ability  had  come  to  re- 
place them.  Roswell  P.  Flower  was  upon  the 
threshold  of  that  remarkable  career  in  Wall 
Street  that  was  to  make  him  for  a  time  its  leader 
and  give  him  the  large  political  honor  of  becoming 

102 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  103 

Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York.  His  brother, 
George  W.,  first  Mayor  of  Watertown,  was  tre- 
mendously interested  in  each  of  the  city's  under- 
takings. George  B.  Phelps  had  risen  from  the 
post  of  Superintendent  of  the  old  Potsdam  & 
Watertown  to  be  one  of  the  town's  richest  men. 
He  had  a  city  house  in  New  York — a  handsome 
"brownstone  front "  in  one  of  the  "forties" — and 
in  his  huge  house  in  Stone  Street,  Watertown,  the 
luxury  of  a  negro  valet,  John  Fletcher,  for  many 
years  a  familiar  figure  upon  the  streets  of  the 
town. 

From  the  pulpit  of  the  dignified  First  Presby- 
terian Church  in  Washington  Street,  the  vener- 
able Dr.  Isaac  Brayton  had  now  retired ;  his  place 
was  being  filled  by  Dr.  Porter,  long  to  be  remem- 
bered in  the  annals  of  that  society.  Dr.  Olin  was 
about  entering  old  Trinity,  still  in  Court  Street. 
Into  the  ancient  structure  of  the  Watertown  High 
School,  in  State  Street,  the  genial  and  accom- 
plished William  Kerr  Wickes  was  coming  as  prin- 
cipal. The  Musical  Union  was  preparing  for  its 
record  run  of  Pinafore  in  Washington  Hall.  And 
in  the  old  stone  cotton  factory  on  Beebee  's  Island, 
Fred  Eames  was  tinkering  with  his  vacuum  air 
brake,  little  dreaming  of  the  tragic  fate  that  was 
to  await  him  but  a  few  years  later;  more  likely, 
perhaps,  of  the  great  air  brake  industry  to  which 


104  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

he  was  giving  birth  and  which,  three  decades  later, 
was  to  take  its  proper  place  among  the  town's 
chief  industries.  Paper  manufacturing,  as  it  is 
known  to-day  in  the  North  Country,  was  then  a 
comparatively  small  thing ;  there  were  few  impor- 
tant mills  outside  of  those  of  the  Knowltons  or  the 
Taggarts — the  clans  of  Remington,  of  Herring, 
of  Sherman  and  of  Anderson  were  yet  to  make 
their  deep  impress  upon  the  community. 

Carriage  making  was  then  a  more  important 
business  than  that  of  paper  making.  The  very 
thought  of  the  motor-car  was  as  yet  unborn  and 
Watertonians  reckoned  the  completion  of  a  new 
carriage  in  the  town  in  minutes  rather  than  in 
hours.  It  made  steam  engines  and  sewing  ma- 
chines. All  in  all  it  created  a  very  considerable 
traffic  for  its  railroad — in  reality  for  its  railroads, 
for  in  1872  a  rival  line  had  come  to  contest  the 
monopoly  of  the  Eome,  Watertown  &  Ogdens- 
burgh ;  of  which  more  in  good  time. 

As  went  Watertown,  so  went  the  rest  of  the 
North  Country.  It  was  a  brisk,  prosperous  land, 
wrhere  industry  and  culture  shared  their  forces. 
There  was  a  plenitude  of  manufacturing  even  out- 
side of  Watertown,  whilst  the  mines  at  Keene  and 
Rossie  had  reopened  and  were  shipping  a  modest 
five  or  six  cars  a  day  of  really  splendid  red  ore. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  105 

People  worked  well,  people  thought  well.  The  ex- 
cellent seminaries  at  Belleville,  at  Adams,  at  Ant- 
werp and  at  Gouverneur  reflected  a  general  de- 
mand for  an  education  better  than  the  public 
schools  of  that  day  might  offer.  The  young  St. 
Lawrence  University  up  at  Canton,  after  a  hard 
beginning  fight,  was  at  last  on  its  way  to  its  pres- 
ent day  strength  and  influence. 

Northern  New  Yorkers  traveled.  They  traveled 
both  far  and  near.  Even  distant  Europe  was  no 
sealed  book  to  them.  There  were  dozens  of  fine 
homes,  even  well  outside  of  the  towns  and  villages, 
which  boasted  their  Steinway  pianos  and  whose 
young  folk,  graduated  from  Yale  or  Mount  Hoi- 
yoke,  spoke  intelligently  with  their  elders  of  Na- 
poleon III  or  of  the  charms  of  the  boulevards  of 
Paris. 

In  the  upbuilding  of  this  prosperous  era  the 
Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  had  played  its 
own  large  part.  By  1875  it  was  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  century  old.  It  was  indeed  an  extremely 
high  grade  and  prosperous  property,  the  pride, 
not  only  of  Watertown,  which  had  been  so  largely 
responsible  for  its  construction,  but  indeed  of  the 
entire  North  Country.  It  had,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  as  far  back  as  1866,  succeeded  in  thrusting  a 
line  into  Oswego,  thirty  miles  west  of  Eichland. 


106  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

After  which  it  felt  that  it  needed  an  entrance  into 
Syracuse,  then  as  now,  a  most  important  rail- 
road center.  To  accomplish  this  entrance  it 
leased,  in  1875,  the  Syracuse  Northern  Railroad, 
and  then  gained  at  last  a  firm  two-footed  stand 
upon  the  tremendous  main  line  of  the  New  York 
Central  &  Hudson  River  Railroad.  It  continued 
to  maintain,  of  course,  its  original  connection  at 
Rome — its  long  stone  depot  there  still  stands 
to-day,  although  far  removed  from  the  railroad 
tracks.  Yet  one,  in  memory  at  least,  may  see 
it  as  the  brisk  business  place  of  yore,  with  the 
four  tracks  of  the  Vanderbilt  trail  curving  upon 
the  one  side  of  it  and  the  brightly  painted  yellow 
cars  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.  waiting  upon  the  other. 
The  Rome  connection  gave  the  road  direct  access 
to  Boston,  New  York,  and  to  the  East  generally; 
that  at  Syracuse  made  the  journey  from  North- 
ern New  York  to  western  points  much  easier  and 
more  direct,  than  it  had  been  through  the  Rome 
gateway.  It  was  logical  and  it  was  strategic. 
And  it  is  possible  that  had  the  Rome,  Watertown 
&  Ogdensburgh  been  content  to  remain  satisfied 
with  its  system  as  it  then  existed,  a  good  deal  of 
railroad  history  that  followed  after,  would  have 
remained  unwritten. 

The  railroad  scheme  that  finally  led  to  the  build- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  107 

ing  of  the  Syracuse  Northern  had  been  under  dis- 
cussion since  1851,  the  year  of  the  completion  of 
the  Watertown  &  Rome  Railroad.  Yet,  largely 
because  of  the  paucity  of  good  sized  intermediate 
towns  upon  the  lines  of  the  proposed  route,  the 
plan  for  a  long  time  had  languished.  In  the  late 
sixties  it  was  successfully  revived,  however,  and 
the  Syracuse  Northern  Railroad  incorporated, 
early  in  1870,  with  a  capital  stock  of  $1,250,000 
and  the  following  officers : 

President,  ALLEN  MUNROE 
Secretary,  PATEICK  H.  AGAN 
Treasurer,  E.  B.  JUDSON 
Engineer,  A.  C.  POWELL 

Directors 

Allen  Munroe,  Syracuse  Jacob  S.  Smith,  Syracuse 

E.  W.  Leavenworth,  Syracuse  Horace  K.  White,  Syracuse 

E.  B.  Judson,  Syracuse  Elizur  Clark,  Syracuse 

Patrick  Lynch,  Syracuse  Garret  Doyle,  Syracuse 

Frank  H.  Hiscock,  Syracuse  William  H.  Canter,  Brewerton 

John  A.  Green,  Syracuse  James  A.  Clark,  Pulaski 

Orin  R.  Earl,  Sandy  Creek 

The  road  once  organized  found  a  lively  demand 
for  its  shares.  Its  largest  investor  was  the  city  of 
Syracuse,  which  subscribed  for  $250,000  worth  of 
its  bonds.  The  first  depot  of  the  new  line  in  the 
city  that  gave  it  its  birth  was  in  Saxon  Street,  up 
in  the  old  town  of  Salina.  From  there  it  was  that 
Denison,  Belden  &  Company  began  the  construe- 


108  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

tion  of  the  railroad.  It  was  not  a  difficult  road 
to  build,  easy  grades  and  but  three  bridges — a 
small  one  at  Parish  and  two  fairly  sizable  ones  at 
Brewerton  and  at  Pulaski — to  go  up,  so  it  was 
finished  and  opened  for  traffic  in  the  fall  of  1871 
—which  was  precisely  the  same  year  that  the  New 
York  Central  opened  its  wonderful  Grand  Central 
Depot  down  on  Forty-second  Street,  New  York. 
The  line  ran  through  from  Syracuse  to  Sandy 
Creek,  now  Lacona.  It  started  off  in  good  style, 
operating  two  passenger  express  trains,  an  ac- 
commodation and  two  freights  each  day  in  each 
direction.  At  the  beginning  it  made  a  brave 
showing  for  itself,  and  soon  after  it  was  open 
it  built  for  itself  a  one-storied  brick  passenger 
station  across  from  the  New  York  Central's,  then 
new,  depot  in  Syracuse,  and  at  right  angles  to  it. 
That  station  still  stands  but  is  now  used  as  the 
Syracuse  freight  station  of  the  American  Rail- 
way Express. 

E.  H.  Bancroft  was  the  first  superintendent  of 
the  Syracuse  Northern,  C.  C.  Morse,  the  second, 
and  J.  W.  Brown,  the  third.  J.  Dewitt  Mann  was 
the  accounting  officer  and  paymaster.  The  road 
never  attained  to  a  long  official  roster  of  its  own, 
however.  Within  a  twelvemonth  after  its  open- 
ing the  prosperous  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdens- 
burgh,  having  already  seen  the  advantages  of  a 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  109 

two-footed  connection  with  the  New  York  Central, 
planned  its  purchase.  The  Syracuse  road,  having 
failed  to  become  the  financial  success  of  which  its 
promoters  had  hoped,  this  act  was  easily  accom- 
plished. The  Sheriff  of  Onondaga  County  as- 
sisted. In  1875  there  was  a  foreclosure  sale  and 
the  Syracuse  Northern  ceased  to  live  thereafter, 
save  as  a  branch  to  Pulaski.  A  few  years  later 
the  six  miles  of  track  between  that  town  and 
Sandy  Creek  were  torn  up  and  abandoned.  The 
old  road-bed  is  still  in  plain  sight,  however,  for 
a  considerable  distance  along  the  line  of  the  state 
highway  to  Watertown  as  it  leads  out  of  Pulaski, 
while  the  abutments  of  the  former  high  railroad 
bridge  over  the  Salmon  River  still  show  conspicu- 
ously in  that  village. 

With  its  system  fairly  well  rounded  out,  the 
Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  began  the  in- 
tensive perfection  of  its  service.  It  built,  in  1874, 
the  first  section  of  the  long  stone  freight-house 
opposite  the  passenger  station — so  long  a  land- 
mark of  Watertown — from  stone  furnished  by 
Lawrence  Gage,  of  Chaumont.  Mr.  Moak,  the 
Superintendent  of  the  road  at  that  time,  was  criti- 
cized for  this  expenditure.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
it  was  necessary  not  only  to  twice  enlarge  it  quite 
radically,  but  to  build  a  relief  transfer  station  at 


110  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

the  Junction  before  the  stone  freight-house  was 
finally  torn  down  to  make  room  for  the  present 
passenger  station  at  Watertown. 

Between  the  old  freight-shed  and  the  old  pas- 
senger station  there  ran  for  many  years  but  a 
single  passenger  track,  curving  all  the  way,  and 
beside  it  the  long  platform,  which  was  protected 
from  the  elements  by  a  canopy,  which  in  turn,  had 
a  canopied  connection  with  the  waiting-room;  at 
that  time  still  in  the  wing  or  original  portion  of 
the  station ;  the  main  or  newer  portion,  being  occu- 
pied by  the  restaurant,  which  had  passed  from  the 
hands  of  Col.  Dunton  into  those  of  Silas  Snell, 
Watertown 's  most  famous  cornet  player  of  that 
generation. 

At  Watertown  the  Cape  Vincent  train  would  lay 
in  at  the  end  of  the  freight-house  siding,  and,  be- 
cause the  Coffeen  Street  crossover  had  not  then 
been  constructed,  would  back  in  and  out  between 
the  passenger  station  and  the  Watertown  Junc- 
tion, a  little  over  a  mile  distant.  Watertown 
Junction  was  still  a  point  of  considerable  pas- 
senger importance.  Long  platforms  were  placed 
between  the  tracks  there  and  passengers  destined 
through  to  the  St.  Lawrence  never  went  up  into 
the  main  passenger  station  at  all,  but  changed  at 
that  point  to  the  Cape  train. 

The  Thousand  Islands  were  beginning  to  be 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  111 

known  as  a  summer  resort  of  surpassing  excel- 
lence. The  famous  Crossmon  House  at  Alex- 
andria Bay  was  already  more  than  two  decades 
old.  0.  G.  Staples  had  just  finished  that  nine- 
days-wonder,  the  Thousand  Island  House,  and 
plans  were  in  the  making  for  the  building  of  the 
Bound  Island  Hotel  (afterwards  the  Frontenac) 
and  other  huge  hostelries  that  were  to  make  social 
history  at  the  St.  Lawrence,  even  before  the  com- 
ing of  the  cottage  and  club-house  era. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  from  the  first  the  E.  W. 
&  O.  developed  excellent  docking  facilities  at  Cape 
Vincent.  At  the  outset  it  had  builded  the  large 
covered  passenger  station  upon  the  wharf  there, 
whose  tragic  destruction  we  have  already  wit- 
nessed. Beyond  this  were  the  freight-sheds  and 
the  grain  elevator.  For  Cape  Vincent's  impor- 
tance in  those  days  was  by  no  means  limited  to 
the  passenger  travel,  which  there  debouched  from 
the  trains  to  take  the  steamers  to  the  lower  river 
points,  or  even  that  which  all  the  year  around 
made  its  tedious  way  across  the  broad  river  to 
Kingston,  twenty-two  miles  away. 

The  Lady  of  the  Lake  passed  out  of  existence 
some  six  or  seven  years  after  the  inauguration  of 
the  Kingston  ferry  in  connection  with  the  trains 
into  the  Cape.  She  was  replaced  by  the  steamer 


112  Tlir  Ktory  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Pierrepont — the  first  of  this  name — which  was 
built  on  Wolfe  Island  in  the  summer  of  1856  and 
went  into  service  in  the  following  spring.  In 
that  same  summer  of  1857  the  canal  was  dug 
through  the  waistline  girth  of  Wolfe  Island,  and 
a  short  and  convenient  route  established  through 
it,  between  Cape  Vincent  and  Kingston — some 
twelve  or  thirteen  miles  all  told,  as  against  nearly 
twice  that  distance  around  either  the  head  or  the 
foot  of  the  island. 

It  was  a  pleasant  ride  through  the  old  Wolfe 
Island  canal.  I  can  easily  remember  it,  myself, 
the  slow  and  steady  progress  of  the  steamboat 
through  the  rich  farmlands  and  truck-gardens,  the 
neatly  whitewashed  highway  bridges,  swinging 
leisurely  open  from  time  to  time  to  permit  of  our 
progress.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  the  ditch  was 
ever  abandoned. 

The  first  Pierrepont  was  not  a  particularly  suc- 
cessful craft  and  it  was  supplemented  in  1864  by 
the  Watertown,  which  gradually  took  the  brunt  of 
the  steadily  increasing  traffic  across  the  St.  Law- 
rence at  this  point.  The  ferry  grew  steadily  to 
huge  proportions  and  for  many  years  a  great 
volume  of  both  passengers  and  freight  was  han- 
dled upon  it.  It  is  a  fact  worth  noting  here,  per- 
haps, that  the  first  through  shipment  of  silk  from 
the  Orient  over  the  newly  completed  transconti- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  113 

nental  route  of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  was 
made  into  New  York,  by  way  of  the  Cape  Vincent 
ferry  and  the  R.  W.  &  0.  in  the  late  fall  of  1883. 

With  the  business  of  this  international  crossing 
steadily  increasing,  it  became  necessary  to  keep 
two  efficient  steamers  upon  the  route  and  so  the 
second  Pierrepont  was  builded,  going  into  service 
in  1874.  At  about  that  time  the  Watertown 
ceased  her  active  days  upon  the  river  and  the  lake 
and  was  succeeded  by  the  staunch  steamer  Maud. 
Here  was  a  staunch  craft  indeed,  built  upon  the 
Clyde  somewhere  in  the  late  fifties  or  the  early 
sixties,  and  shipped  in  sections  from  Glasgow  to 
Montreal,  where  she  was  set  up  for  St.  Lawrence 
service,  in  which  she  still  is  engaged,  under  the 
name  of  the  America.  Her  engines  for  many 
years  were  of  a  peculiar  Scotch  pattern,  by  no 
means  usual  in  this  part  of  the  world,  and  appar- 
ently understood  by  no  one  other  than  Billy 
Derry,  for  many  years  her  engineer.  Occasion- 
ally Derry  would  quarrel  with  the  owners  of  the 
Maud  and  quit  his  job.  They  always  sent  their 
apologies  after  him,  however.  No  one  else  could 
run  the  boat,  and  they  were  faced  with  the  alter- 
native of  bowing  to  his  whims  or  laying  up  the 
steamer. 

Yet,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  the  passenger 


114  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

traffic  was  but  a  small  part  of  Cape  Vincent 's  im- 
portance through  three  or  four  great  decades. 
The  ferry  carried  mail,  freight  and  express  as 
well — the  place  was  ever  an  important  ferry  cross- 
ing, a  seat  of  a  custom  house  of  the  first  rank. 
In  summer  the  steamer  acted  as  ferry,  for  many 
years  crossing  the  Wolfe  Island  barrier  four  times 
daily,  through  three  or  four  miles  of  canal,  which 
some  time  along  in  the  early  nineties  was  suffered 
to  fill  up  and  was  abandoned  in  1892.  In  mid- 
winter mail  and  freight  and  passengers  alike 
crossed  in  speed  and  a  real  degree  of  fine  comfort 
in  great  four-horse  sleighs  upon  a  hard  roadway 
of  thick,  thick  ice.  It  was  between  seasons,  when 
the  ice  was  either  forming  or  breaking  and  sleighs 
as  utter  an  impossibility  as  steamboats  that  the 
real  problem  arose.  In  those  times  of  the  year  a 
strange  craft,  which  was  neither  sled  nor  boat,  but 
a  combination  of  both,  was  used.  It  went  through 
the  water  and  over  the  ice.  Yet  the  result  was 
not  as  easy  as  it  sounds.  More  than  one  pas- 
senger paid  his  dollar  to  go  from  Cape  Vincent  to 
Kingston,  for  the  privilege  of  pushing  the  heavy 
hand  sled-boat  over  the  ice,  getting  his  feet  wet 
in  the  bargain. 

Into    the    many    vagaries    of    North    Country 
weather,  I  shall  not  enter  at  this  time.    In  a  later 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  115 

chapter  we  shall  give  some  brief  attention  to  them. 
It  is  enough  here  to  say  that  a  man  who  could 
fight  a  blizzard,  coming  in  from  off  Ontario,  and 
keep  the  line  open  could  run  a  railroad  anywhere 
else  in  the  world.  In  after  years  I  was  to  see, 
myself,  some  of  these  rare  old  fights;  Eussell 
plows  getting  into  the  drifts  over  their  necks 
around-about  Pulaski  and  Richland  and  Sandy 
Creek,  seemingly  half  the  motive  power  off  the 
track.  Yet  these  were  no  more  than  the  road  has 
had  since  almost  the  very  day  of  its  inception. 

Once,  in  the  midwinter  of  1873,  we  had  a  noble 
old  wind — the  North  Country  has  a  way  of  having 
noble  old  winds,  even  to-day — and  the  huge  spire 
of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church  in  Washington 
Street,  Watertown,  came  tumbling  down  into  the 
road,  smashed  into  a  thousand  bits,  and  seemingly 
with  no  more  noise  than  the  sharp  slamming  of  a 
blind. 

That  night — it  was  the  evening  of  the  fifteenth 
of  January — the  railroad  in  and  about  Watertown 
nearly  collapsed.  Trains  were  hugely  delayed 
and  many  of  them  abandoned.  The  Watertown 
Times  of  the  next  day,  naively  announced : 

"Conductor  Sandiforth  didn't  come  home  last 
night  and  missed  a  good  deal  by  not  coming.  He 
spent  the  evening  with  a  party  of  shovelers  work- 
ing his  way  from  Kichland  to  Pierrepont  Manor. 


116  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Conductor  Aiken  followed  him  up  with  the  night 
train  but  he  couldn't  pass  him,  and  so  both  trains 
arrived  here  at  9:30  this  (Thursday)  morning." 

Here  Conductor  Lew  Sandiforth  first  comes 
into  our  picture  and  for  a  moment  I  shall  inter- 
rupt my  narrative  to  give  a  bit  of  attention  to  him. 
He  is  well  worth  the  interruption  of  any  narrative. 
We  had  many  pretty  well-known  conductors  on 
the  old  E.  W.  &  0. — but  none  half  so  well-known 
as  Lew  Sandiforth.  He  was  the  wit  of  the  old 
line,  and  its  pet  beau.  It  was  said  of  him,  that 
if  there  was  a  good  looking  woman  on  the  after- 
noon train  up  to  Watertown,  Lew  would  quit  tak- 
ing tickets  somewhere  north  of  Sandy  Creek. 
The  train  then  could  go  to  the  Old  Harry  for  all 
he  cared.  He  had  his  social  duties  to  perform. 
He  was  not  one  to  shirk  such  responsibilities. 

In  those  days  a  railroad  conductor  was  some- 
thing of  an  uncrowned  king,  anyway.  His  pay 
was  meager,  but  ofttimes  his  profits  were  large. 
One  of  these  famous  old  ticket  punchers  upon  the 
Borne  road  lived  at  the  Woodruff  House,  in 
Watertown,  throughout  the  seventies.  His  wage 
was  seventy-five  dollars  a  month,  but  he  paid 
ninety  dollars  a  month  board  for  his  wife  and 
himself  and  kept  a  driver  and  a  carriage  in  addi- 
tion. No  questions  were  asked.  The  road,  on 
the  whole,  was  glad  to  get  its  freight  and  its  ticket 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  117 

office  revenues.  Even  these  last  were  nothing  to 
brag  about.  It  was  a  poor  sort  of  a  public  man 
in  those  days  who  could  not  have  his  wallet  lined 
with  railroad  annual  passes.  A  large  proportion 
of  the  passengers  upon  the  average  train  rode  free 
of  any  charge.  Sometimes  this  attained  a  scan- 
dalous volume.  Away  back  in  1858,  I  find  the 
Directors  of  the  Potsdam  &  Watertown  resolving 
that  no  officer  of  their  company  1 1  shall  give  a  free 
pass  for  more  than  one  trip  over  the  road  to  any 
one  person,  except  officers  of  other  railroad  com- 
panies; and  that  an  account  of  all  free  passes 
taken  up  shall  be  entered  by  the  conductors  in 
their  daily  returns  with  the  name  of  the  person 
passed  and  the  name  of  the  person  who  gave  the 
pass,  and  the  Superintendent  shall  submit  state- 
ment thereof  to  each  meeting  of  the  Board. " 
Moreover,  he  was  requested  to  notify  the  conduc- 
tors not  to  pass  any  persons  without  a  pass  except 
the  Directors  and  Secretary  of  the  company,  and 
their  families,  the  roadmaster,  paymaster,  station 
agents,  and  "  persons  who  the  conductors  think 
are  entitled  to  charity. ' ' 

Despite  obstacles  to  its  full  earning  power  such 
as  this,  the  Home,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh 
prospered  .  .  .  and  progressed.  Forever  it  was 
planning  new  frills  to  add  to  its  operation.  In 


118  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

1865  it  had  placed  a  through  Wagner  sleeping-car 
in  service  between  Watertown  and  New  York.  In 
1875  this  was  an  established  function,  leaving 
Watertown  on  the  6 :30  train  each  evening  and  ar- 
riving in  New  York  at  7 :55  the  next  morning ;  re- 
turning it  left  New  York  each  evening  at  six,  and 
Albany  at  11 :40,  and  was  in  Watertown  at  9 :05 
the  next  morning.  A  later  management  of  the 
E.  W.  &  0.  in  a  fit  of  economy  discontinued  this 
service,  and  for  more  than  twenty  years  the  North 
Country  stood  in  line  for  sleeping-car  berths  at 
Utica  station,  while  it  fought  for  the  restoration 
of  its  sleeping-cars.  These  cars  eventually  came 
back,  but  not  regularly  until  1891,  when  the  New 
York  Central  took  over  the  property  and  put  its 
up-to-date  traffic  methods  upon  it  once  again. 

The  local  management  of  the  mid-seventies — 
composed  almost  entirely  of  Watertown  men- 
was  not  content  to  stop  with  the  through  sleeping 
cars  between  their  chief  town  and  New  York. 
They  finally  instructed  H.  H.  Sessions,  their  Mas- 
ter Mechanic,  down  in  the  old  shops  at  Eome,  to 
build  two  wonderful  new  cars  for  their  line,  "the 
likes  of  which  had  never  been  seen  before. ' '  Mr. 
Sessions  approached  his  new  task  with  avidity. 
He  was  a  born  car-builder,  in  after  years  destined 
to  take  charge  of  the  motive  power  department  of 
the  International  &  Great  Northern  Railway,  at 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  119 

Palestine,  Texas,  and  then,  in  January,  1887,  to 
become  Manager  of  the  great  Pullman  car  works 
at  Pullman,  111.,  just  outside  of  Chicago.  For  six 
years  he  held  this  position,  afterwards  resigning 
it  to  enter  into  business  for  himself.  The  first 
vestibuled  trains  in  which  the  platforms  were  en- 
closed, were  built  under  his  supervision  under 
what  are  known  to-day  as  the  "  Sessions  Patents. " 
He  was  indeed  an  inventive  genius,  and  also  de- 
signed the  first  steel  platforms  and  other  very 
modern  devices  in  progressive  car  construction. 

Sessions  produced  two  sleeping-cars  for  the 
old  Rome  road.  The  " likes  of  them"  had  never 
been  seen  before,  and  never  will  be  seen  again. 
They  were  named  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  On- 
tario, and,  despite  the  fact  that  they  depended 
upon  candle-light  as  their  sole  means  of  illumina- 
tion, they  were  wonderfully  finished  in  the  rarest 
of  hard-woods.  Alternately  they  were  sleeping- 
cars  and  parlor-cars.  At  the  first  they  were  dis- 
tinguished by  the  fact  that  they  possessed  no 
upper-berths,  their  mattresses,  pillows  and  linen 
being  carried  in  closets  at  either  end  of  the  car. 

These  cars  at  one  time  were  placed  in  service 
between  Syracuse,  Water-town  and  Fabyan's, 
N.  H.,  passing  enroute  through  Norwood,  Rouse's 
Point  and  Montpelier.  One  of  them  was  in  charge 


120  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

of  Ed.  Frary,  the  son  of  the  General  Ticket  Agent 
of  the  R.  W.  &  0.  at  that  time,  and  the  other  in 
charge  of  L.  S.  Hungerford,  who  originally  came 
from  Evan's  Mills.  This  was  the  Hungerford, 
who  to-day  is  Vice-President  and  General  Man- 
ager of  the  Pullman  Company,  at  Chicago.  A 
third  or  "spare"  car  was  afterwards  purchased 
from  the  Pullman  Company  and  renamed  the 
DeKalb. 

Because  of  the  limited  carrying  capacity  of 
these  E.  W.  &  0.  sleeping-cars  they  were  never 
profitable.  They  did  a  little  better  when  they 
were  in  day  service  as  parlor-cars.  One  of  Mr. 
Eichard  Holden's  most  vivid  memories  is  of  one 
of  these  cars  coming  into  Watertown  from  the 
south  on  the  afternoon  train,  which  would  halt 
somewhere  near  the  Pine  Street  cutting  to  slip  it 
off,  preparatory  to  placing  it  on  the  Cape  train  at 
the  Junction. 

"I  remember,"  he  says,  "how  proud  the  late 
Frank  Cornish  was  in  riding  down  the  straight 
on  the  first  drawing-room  car,  with  his  hands  on 
the  brakewheel.  He  was  a  brakeman  at  that  time. 
Afterwards  he  was  promoted  to  baggageman  and 
then  to  conductor,  having  the  run  on  Number  One 
and  Number  Seven  for  many  years,  afterwards 
conducting  a  cigar-stand  in  the  Yates  Hotel  at 
Syracuse  until  he  died." 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  121 

When  hard  times  came  upon  the  Rome,  Water- 
town  &  Ogdensburgh  these  cars  were  laid  up. 
Once  in  later  years,  under  the  Parsons  manage- 
ment, they  were  renamed  the  Cataract  and  the 
Niagara,  and  operated  in  the  Niagara  Falls  night 
trains.  But  again,  they  proved  too  much  of  a 
financial  drag,  and  they  were  finally  converted 
into  day-coaches.  There  was  another  parlor-car, 
the  Watertown.  Eventually  this  became  the  pri- 
vate-car of  Mr.  H.  M.  Britton,  General  Manager 
of  the  B.  W.  &  0.,  while  the  others  remained  day 
coaches ;  still  retaining,  however,  their  wide  plate- 
glass  windows  and  their  general  appearance  of 
comfortable  ease. 

Here  indeed  was  the  golden  age  of  the  Rome 
road.  Its  bright,  neat,  yellow  cars,  its  smartly 
painted  and  trimmed  engines  all  bespoke  the  ex- 
istence of  a  prosperous  little  rail  carrier,  that 
might  have  left  well  enough  alone.  But,  seem- 
ingly it  could  not.  There  is  a  man  living  in  the 
western  part  of  this  state,  who  recalls  one  fine  day 
there  in  the  mid-seventies,  when  Mr.  Massey — the 
President  of  the  road,  came  walking  out  of  the 
Watertown  station,  talking  all  the  time  to  Mr. 
Moak,  its  General  Superintendent — came  over  to 
him: 

"We're  going  to  be  a  real  railroad  at  last, 


122  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

John,"  said  he.  "We're  going  through  to  Ni- 
agara Falls  upon  our  own  rails  and  get  into  the 
trunk-line  class." 

He  was  giving  expression  to  a  dream  of  years. 
A  moment  ago  and  we  were  speaking  of  the  opera- 
tion through  two  or  three  summers  of  sleeping- 
cars  between  Watertown  and  the  White  Moun- 
tains over  the  R.  W.  &  0.,  the  Northern  (at  that 
time,  already  become  the  Ogdensburgh  &  Lake 
Champlain),  the  Central  Vermont,  the  Montpelier 
and  Wells  River,  and  the  Portland  and  Ogdens- 
burgh. The  officers  of  the  Eome  road  felt  that, 
if  they  could  bridge  the  gap  existing  between 
the  terminals  of  their  line  at  Oswego,  and  go 
through  to  Suspension  Bridge  or  Buffalo,  where 
there  were  plenty  of  competing  lines  through 
to  Chicago  and  the  West,  that  they  could  both 
enter  upon  the  competitive  business  of  carrying 
western  freight  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and 
at  the  same  time  stand  independent  of  the  New 
York  Central.  Eventually  their  idea  was  to  take 
a  concrete  form,  but  again  I  anticipate. 

In  that  brisk  day  there  was,  in  the  slow  and 
laborious  process  of  building  a  railroad,  leading 
due  west  from  Oswego.  It  was  called  the  Lake 
Ontario  Shore  Railroad,  and  its  construction  was 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  123 

indeed  a  laborious  process.  For  many  years  it 
came  to  an  end  just  eighteen  miles  beyond  Oswego. 
Finally  it  reached  the  little  village  of  Ontario, 
fifty-one  miles  beyond.  And  there  stopped  dead. 
If  it  had  forever  been  halted  there,  it  would  have 
been  a  good  thing.  Its  promoters  were  both  in- 
dustrious and  persistent,  however.  They  chose 
to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  narrow  territory,  that 
they  sought  to  thread,  promised  small  local  traffic 
returns  for  many  years  to  come;  a  thin  strip  it 
was  between  the  main  line  of  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral and  the  south  shore  of  Lake  Ontario,  and  al- 
though nearly  150  miles  in  length,  never  more 
than  twelve  or  fifteen  in  width,  and  without  any 
sizable  communities.  The  prospect  of  a  profit- 
able traffic,  originating  in  so  thin  a  strip,  was 
small  indeed. 

The  prospectors  of  the  Lake  Ontario  Shore 
Railroad  did  not  see  it  that  way.  They  stressed 
the  fact  that  at  Sterling  they  would  intersect  the 
Southern  Central  (now  the  Lehigh  Valley),  at 
Sodus  the  Northern  Central  (now  the  Pennsyl- 
vania), at  Charlotte;  the  port  of  Rochester,  the 
Rochester  &  State  Line  (now  the  Buffalo,  Roches- 
ter &  Pittsburgh)  all  in  addition  to  the  many 
valuable  connections  to  be  made  at  the  Niagara 
River.  Yet  for  a  considerable  time  after  the 


124  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

road  had  been  pushed  through  Western  New 
York,  it  came  to  a  dead  stop  at  Lewiston.  Its 
original  terminal  can  still  be  seen  in  that  small 
village. 

It  was  then  thought  possible  and  feasible  to 
build  a  railroad  bridge  across  the  Niagara  and  the 
international  boundary  between  Lewiston  and 
Queenstown,  in  competition  with  the  Suspension 
Bridge,  which  from  the  very  moment  of  its  open- 
ing in  1849  had  been  an  overwhelming  success. 
The  energetic  group  of  Oswego  men  who  had  pro- 
moted the  building  of  the  Lake  Ontario  Shore, 
hoped  to  duplicate  the  success  of  the  Suspension 
Bridge  there  at  Lewiston.  They  saw  that  small 
frontier  New  York  town  transformed  into  a  real 
railroad  metropolis. 

"And  what  a  line  we  shall  have,  running  right 
up  to  it!"  they  argued.  " Seventy- three  out  of 
our  seventy-six  miles,  west  of  the  Genesee  Eiver, 
as  straight  as  the  proverbial  ruler-edge;  and  a 
maximum  gradient  of  but  twenty-six  feet  to  the 
mile!  What  opportunities  for  fast — and  efficient 
operation ! ' ' 

They  had  capitalized  their  line  at  $4,000,000 
and  in  October,  1870,  when  I  first  find  official  men- 
tion of  it,  they  had  expended  $54,300  upon  it.  Its 
officers  at  that  time  were : 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  125 

President,  GILBERT  MOLLISON,  Oswego 
Treasurer,  LUTHER  WRIGHT,  Oswego 
Secretary,  HENRY  L.  DAVIS,  Oswego 
Engineer,  ISAAC  S.  DOANE,  Oswego 

Directors 

Luther  Wright,  Oswego  Oliver  P.  Scovell,  Lewiston 

Alanson  S.  Page,  Oswego  George  I.  Post,  Fairhaven 

Fred'k  T.  Carrington,  Oswego  William  0.  Wood,  Red  Creek 

Gilbert  Mollison,  Oswego  Burt  Van  Home,  Lockport 

Reuben  F.  Wilson,  Wilson  James  Brackett,  Rochester 

Joseph  L.  Fowler,  Ransonville  D.  F.  Worcester,  Rochester 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  railroad  bridge 
was  never  thrust  across  the  Niagara  at  Lewiston. 
That  project  died  "a'borning."  And  so,  almost, 
did  the  Lake  Ontario  Shore  Railroad.  As  I  have 
just  said,  the  building  of  the  road  finally  was 
halted  at  Ontario,  fifty-one  miles  west  of  Oswego. 
Finally,  by  tremendous  effort  and  the  injection  of 
some  capital  from  the  wealthy  city  of  Rochester 
into  the  project  it  was  brought  through  in  1875  as 
far  as  Kendall,  a  miserable  little  railroad, 
wretched  and  woe-begone  with  its  sole  rolling 
stock  consisting  of  two  second-hand  locomotives, 
two  passenger-cars  and  some  fifty  or  sixty  freight- 
cars. 

In  the  long  run,  just  as  most  folk  had  antici- 
pated from  the  beginning,  it  was  the  wealthy  and 
prosperous  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh 


126  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

that  took  over  the  Lake  Ontario  Shore  and  com- 
pleted it';  in  1876  as  far  as  Lewiston,  and  a  year 
or  two  later  up  the  face  of  the  Niagara  escarp- 
ment to  Suspension  Bridge  and  the  immensely 
valuable  connections  there.  The  merger,  itself, 
was  consummated  in  the  midsummer  of  1875.  To 
reach  the  tracks  of  the  new  connecting  link,  from 
those  of  the  old  road,  it  was  necessary  not  only  to 
build  an  exceedingly  difficult  little  tunnel  under 
the  hill,  upon  which  the  Oswego  Court  House 
stands,  but  to  bridge  the  wide  expanse  of  the  river 
just  beyond,  a  tedious  and  expensive  process, 
which  occupied  considerably  more  than  a  twelve- 
month. 

All  of  this  was  not  done  until  1876  and  by  that 
time  disaster  threatened.  The  Borne  road  had 
gone  quite  too  far.  Times  were  growing  very 
hard  once  again.  A  tight  money  market  threat- 
ened; the  storm  of  '73  had  been  passed  but  that 
of  '77  was  still  ahead.  It  began  to  be  a  question 
whether  the  E.  W.  &  0.  could  weather  the  large 
obligations  that  it  had  assumed  when  it  had  ab- 
sorbed the  Lake  Ontario  Shore.  Traffic  did  not 
come  off  the  new  line;  not,  at  least,  in  any  con- 
siderable or  profitable  quantities.  It  defaulted  on 
the  interest  payments  of  its  bonds. 

There  was  the  beginning  of  disaster.  The 
Eome  road  management  realized  this.  They  cut 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  127 

their  dividends  a  little,  and  then  to  nothing. 
Watertown  was  staggered.  For  a  long  term  of 
years  up  to  1870  the  road  had  paid  its  ten  per 
cent  annual  dividend  with  astonishing  regularity. 
In  that  year  it  dropped  a  little — to  eight  per  cent 
—the  next  year,  to  seven,  and  then  in  the  panic 
year  of  1873  to  but  three  and  one-half.  The  fol- 
lowing year  it  had  returned,  with  increasing  good 
times,  to  seven.  In  the  fiscal  year  of  1874-75  the 
Directors  of  the  property  had  voted  six  and  one- 
half.  That  was  the  end.  The  cancer  of  the  Lake 
Ontario  Shore  was  upon  the  parent  property. 
The  strong  old  E.  W.  &  0.  had  permitted  the  de- 
fault of  the  interest  payments  upon  the  bonds  of 
their  leased  property.  Confusion  ruled  among 
the  men  in  the  depot  at  Watertown.  They  were 
dazed  with  impending  disaster. 


CHAPTER  VII 

INTO  THE  SLOUGH  OF  DESPOND 

enthusiasm  which  Mr.  Marcellus  Massey 
•*•  showed  over  the  extension  of  his  railroad 
into  Suspension  Bridge  was  surface  enthusiasm, 
indeed.  In  his  heart  he  felt  that  it  had  taken  a 
very  dangerous  step.  His  mind  was  full  of  fore- 
bodings. Some  of  these  he  confessed  to  his  inti- 
mates in  Watertown.  He  felt  that  a  mistake — if 
you  please,  an  irrevocable  mistake — had  been 
made.  And  there  was  no  turning  back. 

These  forebodings  were  realized.  As  we  have 
just  seen,  the  Lake  Ontario  Shore  defaulted  upon 
its  bonds  in  1876  and  again  in  1877.  The  reflec- 
tion of  this  disastrous  step  came  directly  upon  the 
R.  W.  &  O.  It  ceased  paying  dividends.  The 
North  Country  folk,  who  had  come  to  regard  its 
securities  as  something  hardly  inferior  to  govern- 
ment bonds,  were  depressed  and  then  alarmed. 
Yet  worse  was  to  come.  On  August  1,  1878,  the 
R.  W.  &  0.  defaulted  in  its  interest  on  its  great 
mass  of  consolidated  bonds. 

128 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  129 

The  blow  had  fallen !  Failure  impended !  And 
receivership!  Yet,  in  the  long  run,  both  were 
avoided.  Into  the  directorate  of  the  railroad,  up 
to  that  time  a  fairly  close  Northern  New  York 
affair,  a  new  man  had  come.  He  was  a  smallish 
man,  with  a  reputation  for  keenness  and  sagacity 
in  railroad  affairs,  second  only  to  that  of  Jay 
Gould  or  Daniel  Drew.  There  were  more  ways 
than  one  in  which  Samuel  Sloan,  known  far  and 
wide  as  plain  "Sam  Sloan,"  resembled  both  of 
these  men. 

His  touch  with  the  R.  W.  &  0.  came  physically, 
by  way  of  the  contact  of  the  Delaware,  Lacka- 
wanna  and  Western  with  it  at  three  points;  at 
Oswego,  at  Syracuse,  and  at  Rome — this  last, 
at  that  time  through  its  leased  operation  of 
the  Rome  &  Clinton  Railroad,  which  ceased  July 
1,  1883.  He  had  looked  upon  the  development 
and  the  despair  of  the  Rome  road  with  increas- 
ing interest.  His  careful  and  conservative  mind 
must  have  stood  aghast  at  the  f  oolhardiness  of  the 
Lake  Ontario  Shore  venture.  Sam  Sloan  would 
have  done  nothing  of  that  sort.  The  railroad 
that  he  dominated  so  forcefully  for  many  years — 
Lackawanna — would  have  taken  no  step  of  that 
sort.  Trust  Sam  Sloan  for  that. 

And  yet,  despite  his  evident  dislike  for  the 
property,  the  R.  W.  &  0.  had  its  fascinations  for 


130  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

him.  He  must  have  seen  certain  opportunities  in 
it.  The  fact  that  it  touched  his  own  road  at  so 
many  points,  and,  therefore,  was  capable  of  be- 
coming so  large  a  potential  feeder  for  it — despite 
the  malign  influence  of  those  Vanderbilts  with 
their  important  New  York  Central — must  have 
appealed  to  the  old  man's  heart.  At  any  rate  he 
took  direct  steps  to  gain  control  of  the  Rome 
road. 

The  precise  motives  that  impelled  Samuel  Sloan 
to  gain  a  control  of  the  E.  W.  &  0.,  and  having 
once  gained  a  control  of  it,  to  conduct  it  in  the 
remarkable  manner  that  he  did,  in  all  probability, 
never  will  be  known.  One  may  only  indulge  in 
surmises.  But  just  why  he  should  seek,  appar- 
ently with  deliberateness  and  carefully  precon- 
ceived plan,  to  wreck  what  had  been  so  recently 
the  finest  of  all  railroads  in  the  state  of  New  York 
is  not  clearly  apparent  even  to-day. 

Sloan  was  a  man  of  many  moods.  Receptive 
and  interested  to-day,  he  was  cold  and  bitter  to- 
morrow. One  might  never  count  upon  him.  He 
flattered  Marcellus  Massey,  raised  his  salary  as 
the  President  of  the  Rome  road  from  $7500  to 
$10,000  a  year,  and  then  induced  him  to  purchase 
large  holdings  of  Lackawanna  stock,  putting  up 
as  collateral  his  large  holdings  of  the  shares  of 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  131 

the  R.  W.  &  0.,  just  beginning  their  long  drop 
towards  a  pitifully  low  figure — all  the  time  hold- 
ing the  bait  to  the  old  President  of  the  amazing 
property  that  he  was  about  to  upbuild  in  North- 
ern New  York.  So,  eventually  Sloan  ruined 
Massey,  financially  and  physically,  and  a  broken 
hearted  man  went  out  from  the  old  President's 
office  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.  in  Watertown. 

In  1877,  the  year  before  the  Rome  road  all 
but  created  financial  disaster  in  Northern  New 
York,  Sloan  had  bought  enough  of  its  bargain-sale 
stock  to  have  himself  elected  as  its  President. 
The  official  roster  of  the  road  then  became : 

President,  SAMUEL  SLOAN,  New  York 
Vice-President,  MABCELLUS  MASSEY,  Watertown 
Treasurer,  J.  A.  LAWYER,  Watertown 
General  Freight  Agent,  E.  M.  MOORE,  Watertown 
General  Ticket  Agent,  H.  T.  FRARY,  Watertown 
Supt.  R.  W.  &  0.  Division,  J.  W.  MOAK,  Watertown 
Bupt.  L.  0.  d  8.  N.  Division,  E.  A.  VAN  HORNE,  Oswego 

Directors 

Marcellus  Massey,  Watertown         Moses  Taylor,  Scranton 
Samuel  Sloan,  New  York  C.  Zabriskie,  New  York 

William  E.  Dodge,  New  York        John  S.  Barnes,  New  York 
John  S.  Farlow,  Boston  S.  D.  Hungerford,  Adams 

Percy  R.  Pyne,  New  York  Gardner  R.  Colby,  New  York 

Talcott  H.  Camp,  Watertown         William  M.  White,  Utica 
Theodore  Irwin,  Oswego 

The  North  Country  complexion  of  the  direc- 
torate had  all  but  disappeared.  As  far  back  as 


132  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

1871,  Addison  Day  had  ceased  to  be  Superinten- 
dent of  the  road,  and  had  become  Superintendent 
of  the  Utica  &  Black  River.  He  had  been  suc- 
ceeded by  J.  W.  Moak,  a  former  roadmaster  of 
the  Rome  road.  Moak  was  not  only  equally  as 
efficient  as  Day,  but  he  was  much  more  popular, 
both  with  the  road's  employees  and  its  patrons. 
Yet  one  of  Sloan's  first  acts  was  to  relieve  him  of 
a  portion  of  his  territory  and  responsibility.  He 
made  the  point,  and  it  was  not  without  force,  that 
it  was  all  but  impossible  for  an  operating  officer 
at  Watertown  to  supervise  properly  the  western 
end  of  the  now  far-flung  system.  So,  he  took  the 
former  Syracuse  Northern,  the  Lake  Ontario 
Shore  and  the  branch  from  Eichland  to  Oswego — 
all  the  lines  west  of  Eichland,  in  fact — and  made 
them  into  a  new  division,  with  headquarters  at 
Oswego.  For  this  division  he  brought  one  of  his 
few  favored  officers  from  the  Lackawanna,  E.  A. 
Van  Home,  who  had  been  a  Superintendent  upon 
that  property.  Van  Home  was  a  forceful  man, 
who,  as  he  went  upward,  made  a  distinct  impress 
upon  the  railroad  history  of  the  North  Country. 
He  was  quick  tempered,  decisive,  yet  possessing 
certain  very  likable  qualities  that  were  of  tremen- 
dous help  to  him  there. 

Another    of    Sloan's    early   acts — more    easily 
understood  than  some  others — was  to  tear  out  the 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  133 

soft-coal  grates  of  the  fire  boxes  of  the  R.  W.  &  0. 
locomotives,  and  substitute  for  them  hard-coal 
grates.  Anthracite  then,  as  now,  was  a  great 
specialty  of  the  Lackawanna.  And  in  the  road  to 
the  north  of  him  Sloan  possessed  a  customer  of 
no  mean  dimensions. 

For  the  next  four  or  five  years  the  R.  W.  &  0. 
grubbed  along — and  barely  dodged  receivership. 
Its  service  steadily  went  from  bad  to  worse.  It 
now  took  the  best  passenger  trains  upon  the  line 
four  hours  to  go  from  Watertown  to  Rome, 
seventy- two  miles  (in  the  very  beginnings  of  the 
road,  they  had  done  it  in  an  even  three  hours). 
No  one  knew  when  a  freight  car  would  reach 
New  York  from  Watertown.  Confusion  reigned. 
Chaos  was  at  hand.  And  when  Watertown  mer- 
chants and  manufacturers  would  go  to  Oswego  to 
protest  to  Mr.  Van  Home  (Mr.  Moak  finally  had 
been  demoted,  and  Watertown  suffered  the  hu- 
miliation of  having  the  operating  headquarters 
of  the  system  moved  away  from  it)  they  would 
hear  from  the  General  Superintendent  of  the 
property  his  utter  helplessness  in  the  matter;  the 
threats  from  Sloan  were  that  he  might  close  down 
the  road  altogether,  and  Van  Home  was  beside 
himself  for  explanations: 

"Gentlemen,  I  cannot  do  better, "  he  said,  over 


134  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

and  over  again,  "our  track  is  in  deplorable  condi- 
tion. I  dare  not  send  a  train  over  the  road  with- 
out sending  a  man  afoot,  station  to  station,  ahead 
of  it  to  make  sure  that  the  rails  will  hold. ' J 

So  it  was.  The  track  inspectors'  jobs  were  cut 
out  for  them  these  days.  They  made  some  long- 
distance walking  records.  Yet,  despite  their  vigi- 
lance, train  wrecks  came  with  increasing  fre- 
quency. Morale  was  gone.  The  fine  old  B.  W. 
&  0.  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  Slough  of  Despond. 
Added  to  all  this  were  the  rigors  of  a  North 
Country  winter,  which  we  are  to  see  in  some  de- 
tail in  another  chapter.  According  to  the  vera- 
cious diary  of  Moses  Eames,  on  January  2nd, 
1879,  the  first  train  came  into  Watertown  since 
Christmas  Day.  The  following  day  it  snowed 
again,  and  fiercely  and  the  E.  W.  &  0.  went  out  of 
business  for  another  ten  days.  That  storm  was 
almost  a  record-breaker:  more  than  a  fortnight 
of  continuous  snow  and  extreme  low  temperature. 

In  those  days  Samuel  Sloan  was  busy  occupy- 
ing himself  with  an  extension  of  his  beloved 
Lackawanna  into  Buffalo.  That,  in  itself,  was  a 
real  job.  For  years  the  D.  L.  &  W.  had  termi- 
nated at  Great  Bend,  a  few  miles  east  of  Bing- 
hamton,  and  had  used  trackage  rights  upon  the 
Erie  from  there  West,  not  only  into  the  Buffalo 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  135 

gateway,  but  also  to  reach  its  branch-line  proper- 
ties into  Utica,  Eome,  Syracuse  and  Ithaca. 
Sloan  finally  had  quarreled  with  the  Erie — it  was 
a  way  he  ofttimes  had.  And,  for  once  at  least, 
had  made  a  bold  strategic  move  through  to  the 
far  end  of  the  Empire  State. 

To  build  so  many  miles  of  railroad  one  must 
have  rail.  And  rail  costs  much  money,  unless  one 
may  borrow  it  from  a  friendly  property.  So 
Sloan  went  up  into  the  North  Country  and  "  bor- 
rowed "  rail.  He  "  borrowed "  so  much  that 
travel  upon  the  E.  W.  &  0.  became  fraught  with 
many  real  dangers — and  the  life  of  his  General 
Superintendent  at  Oswego,  Van  Home,  a  night- 
mare. Some  of  the  rails  were,  in  his  own  words, 
not  more  than  six  feet  long.  Finally  in  despera- 
tion he  appealed  to  his  chief  competitor  in  the 
North  Country,  the  Utica  &  Black  Eiver,  which 
rapidly  was  substituting  steel  for  iron  upon  its 
main  line.  In  sheer  pity,  J.  F.  Maynard,  General 
Superintendent  of  the  Utica  &  Black  Eiver,  sent 
his  discarded  iron  to  his  paralyzed  competitor. 

There  was  little  steel  upon  the  Eome  road 
in  1883— less  than  sixty  miles  of  its  417  miles  of 
main  line  track  was  so  equipped.  Neither  were 
there  sufficient  locomotives ;  but  fifty-two  of  them 
all-told,  in  addition  to  two  or  three  that  the  Lacka- 
wanna  had  had  the  extreme  kindness  to  "loan" 


136  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

the  property — upon  a  perfectly  adequate  rental 
basis.  Long  since  it  had  ceased  to  operate  such 
frills  as  sleeping-cars  or  parlor-cars.  It  had  only 
fifty- four  passenger-coaches ;  not  nearly  enough  to 
meet  the  needs  of  so  far-flung  a  line.  And  many 
of  these  were  in  extreme  disrepair.  An  elderly 
citizen  of  Ogdensburgh  says  that  it  was  a  nightly 
occasion  for  the  R.  W.  &  0.  train  to  come  in  from 
DeKalb  with  more  than  half  of  its  journals  ablaze. 

Yet,  despite  these  bitter  years,  the  road  had 
managed  to  avoid  receivership  and  in  1882  it  suc- 
ceeded in  effecting  a  reorganization;  under  which 
it  dropped  the  interest  on  its  bonds  to  five  per  cent 
and  assessed  its  stockholders  ten  dollars  a  share 
for  a  cash  working  fund  to  keep  it  alive.  They 
were  given  income  bonds  for  the  amount  so  con- 
tributed by  them.  There  were  a  few  grumbles  at 
this  arrangement,  but  not  many.  The  huge  po- 
tential possibilities  of  the  property — or  rather  of 
the  rich  and  still  undeveloped  territory  that  it 
served — were  too  generally  recognized. 

It  began  to  be  rumored  that  new  outside  inter- 
ests were  buying  into  the  stock  in  Wall  Street. 
These  rumors  were  brought  to  Sloan's  attention. 

' 1  Look  out, ' '  he  was  warned, ' '  some  one  will  get 
that  old  heap  of  junk  away  from  you  yet." 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  137 

He  laughed.  At  the  best  you  could  tell  Samuel 
Sloan  but  little.  Gradually,  he  proceeded  with 
his  reorganization,  and  in  1883  we  find  the  official 
roster  of  the  reorganized  R.  W.  &  0.  reading  in 
this  fashion : 

President,  SAMUEL  SLOAN,  New  York 
Secretary  and  Treasurer,  J.  A.  LAWYER,  Watertown 
General  Superintendent,  E.  A.  VAN  HOBNE,  Oswego 
Master  Mechanic,  G.  H.  HASELTON,  Oswego 
General  Ticket  Agent,  H.  T.  FBABY,  Watertown 
General  Freight  Agent,  E.  M.  MOOBE,  Oswego 

Directors 

Talcott  H.  Camp,  Watertown  Charles  Parsons,  New  York 

S.  D.  Hungerford,  Adams  Clarence  S.  Day,  New  York 

William  M.  White,  Utica  Percy  R.  Pyne,  New  York 

Theodore  Irwin,  Oswego  John  S.  Barnes,  New  York 

William  E.  Dodge,  New  York  John  S.  Farlow,  Boston 

Roswell  G.  Ralston,  New  York  Gardner  R.  Colby,  New  York 

The  rumor-mongers  were  not  without  fact  to 
support  them,  for  a  new  name  will  be  noticed  upon 
this  list;  that  of  Charles  Parsons,  of  New  York, 
who  had  been  carefully  garnering  in  E.  W.  &  0. 
stock,  at  from  ten  to  fifteen  cents  on  the  dollar. 
Two  names  had  disappeared,  those  of  Marcellus 
Massey  and  of  J.  W.  Moak.  But  we  focus  our  at- 
tention upon  the  name  of  Parsons,  and  then  step 
forward  in  our  narrative  until  the  sixth  day  of 
June,  1883,  when  the  Directors  of  the  R.  W.  &  0. 


138  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

held  a  meeting  in  the  back  room  of  the  Jefferson 
County  Bank  in  Watertown. 

There  was  an  unusually  full  attendance  of  the 
Board.  Mr.  Sloan,  as  was  his  prerogative 
through  his  office  as  President  of  the  road,  sat 
at  the  head  of  the  long  table.  Near  its  foot  sat 
Mr.  Parsons,  a  cadaverous  man,  with  prematurely 
white  hair,  given  to  much  thought  but  little  speech. 
The  business  of  the  meeting,  the  election  of 
officers  for  the  ensuing  year,  was  perfunctory  and 
quickly  accomplished.  The  Secretary  arose  and 
announced  that  Mr.  Parsons  had  been  elected 
President  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.  Sloan  flushed,  and 
then  prepared  to  spring  a  coup  d'etat.  He 
brought  a  packet  of  papers  from  out  of  an  inside 
pocket. 

"What  do  you  propose  to  do  with  these V9  he 
snarled. 

"What  are  they?"  asked  Parsons. 

"Notes  of  the  road  for  $300,000  that  I've  ad- 
vanced it,  to  keep  it  out  of  bankruptcy, "  was  the 
reply. 

"Let  me  see  them,"  said  its  new  President. 
.  .  .  He  glanced  at  the  papers  for  a  moment,  then 
reached  for  his  check-book  and  wrote  his  check 
to  Sloan  for  a  clean  $300,000.  He  handed  it 
across  the  table.  The  retiring  President  scrutin- 
ized it  sharply,  placed  it  within  his  wallet  and  left 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  139 

the  room.  His  connection  with  the  road  was 
terminated.  At  the  best  it  was  a  sinister  connec- 
tion. There  were  few  to  regret  his  going. 

With  his  hand  firmly  fixed  upon  its  wheel,  Par- 
sons began  the  complete  reorganization  of  his 
newly  acquired  property.  He  had  his  long-time 
associate,  Clarence  S.  Day,  elected  as  its  Vice- 
President,  and  within  a  very  few  weeks  had 
brought  to  the  operating  headquarters  in  Oswego 
a  fine  upstanding  man,  the  late  H.  M.  Britton,  as 
General  Manager  of  the  road,  a  newly  created 
title  and  office.  Mr.  Britton  at  once  chose  two 
operating  lieutenants  for  himself;  W.  H.  Chaun- 
cey,  as  Assistant  Superintendent  of  the  Western 
Division  (west  of  Eichland)  at  Oswego,  and  the 
famous  "  Jud"  Eemington,  as  Assistant  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Eastern  Division,  at  Watertown. 

Watertown  had  hoped  that  with  the  new  man- 
agement of  the  road — that  that  railroad  which  it 
had  been  prone  to  call  "its  road" — would  rees- 
tablish the  operating  headquarters  of  the  prop- 
erty there,  also  new  and  enlarged  shops.  In  these 
hopes  it  was  to  be  doomed  to  great  disappoint- 
ment. For  not  only  was  a  Sloan  policy  to  con- 
solidate shop  facilities  at  Oswego  continued  and 
enlarged — the  shops  both  at  Eome  and  at  Water- 
town  were  reduced  to  facilities  for  emergency  re- 


140  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

pairs  only — but  the  corporate  executive  offices 
were  removed  from  it  to  New  York  City,  while 
the  chief  operating  headquarters  of  the  company 
remained  at  Oswego. 

Yet  Watertown  might  easily  enough  take  hope. 
The  service  upon  the  road  was  improved — at  once. 
In  front  of  me  I  have  a  copy  of  the  shortlived 
Daily  Republican,  which  once  was  printed  there. 
It  is  dated,  July  24,  1885,  and  its  rules  are  turned 
to  black  borders  of  mourning  in  tribute  to  General 
Grant,  who  died  upon  the  preceding  day.  In  the 
lower  corner  of  one  of  its  pages  is  an  advertise- 
ment of  the  summer  service  upon  the  B.  W.  &  0. 
It  was  a  real  service,  indeed — five  trains  a  day 
over  the  main  line  in  each  direction,  and  adequate 
schedules  upon  the  branches.  In  that  season  of 
the  year  there  was  through  sleeping-car  service 
between  Watertown  and  New  York,  upon  the 
sleeping-cars  that  were  operated  in  and  out  of 
Cape  Vincent  to  serve  the  steadily,  increasing, 
tourist  trade  upon  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  Par- 
sons' management,  however,  like  the  Sloan,  stead- 
fastly refused  to  operate  this  sleeping-car  service 
through  the  autumn,  winter  and  spring  months  of 
the  year.  There  was  a  through  sleeping-car  serv- 
ice, also,  to  the  White  Mountains,  the  car  coming 
through  from  Niagara  Falls,  passing  Watertown 
at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  reaching 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  141 

Fabyan's,  N.  H.,  at  twenty-eight  minutes  after 
four  in  the  afternoon;  Portland,  Me.,  by  direct 
connection,  at  8:25  p.  m.  This  advertisement  is 
signed  by  W.|  F.  Parsons,  as  General  Passenger 
Agent,  and  by  Mr.  Britton,  as  General  Manager 
of  the  line. 

Britton  was  alert  to  suggestion  and  to  com- 
plaint. To  favored  persons  he  was  apt  to  make 
an  occasional  suggestion  upon  the  company's 
stock. 

"Buy  it  now,"  he  urged.  "Buy  it — and  hold 
it." 

Most  folk  shook  their  heads  negatively  at  that 
suggestion.  Watertown  had  been  burned  once  in 
a  railroad  experience.  It  now  emulated  the  tra- 
ditional wise  child.  "Buy  the  stock,"  whispered 
Britton  to  a  Watertown  manufacturer.  It  then 
was  at  twenty-five.  The  Watertownian  demurred. 
A  year  later  it  was  forty.  "Buy  it  now,"  Brit- 
ton still  whispered  to  him.  And  still  our  cautious 
soul  of  the  North  Country  hesitated.  It  touched 
fifty.  Britton  still  urged.  Of  course,  the  Water- 
town  man  would  not  buy  it  then.  He  prided  him- 
self that  he  never  bought  anything  at  the  top  of 
the  market.  Sixty,  seventy,  then  R.  W.  &  0.  in 
the  great  market  of  Wall  Street  touched  seventy- 
five. 


142  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

"How  about  it  now?"  said  Britton  over  the 
wire. 

The  Watertown  man  laughed.  He  had  made  a 
mistake — one  of  the  few  financial  errors  that  he 
ever  made — and  he  could  afford  to  laugh  at  this 
one.  Buy  E.  W.  &  0.  at  seventy-five?  Not  he. 
Let  the  other  man  do  it.  Afterwards  he  did  not 
laugh  as  hard.  He  lived  long  enough  to  see  E.  W. 
&  0.  reach  par  once  again — and  then  cross  it  and 
keep  upwards  all  the  while.  He  saw  it  reach  105, 
then  110  and  then  on  a  certain  memorable  March 
day  in  1891,  123. 

But  this  anticipates.  We  are  riding  too  rapidly 
with  our  narrative.  If  old  "Jud"  Eemington 
were  traveling  with  us  upon  this  special  he  would 
do,  as  sometimes  was  his  wont,  reach  up  and  pull 
the  bell-cord  to  slow  the  train.  He  took  no  risks, 
did  "  Jud" — bless  his  fine,  old  heart. 

We  have  anticipated — and  perhaps  we  have 
neglected.  All  these  years,  of  which  we  have 
been  writing,  the  E.  W.  &  0.  had  a  competitor — a 
very  live  competitor,  we  must  have  you  under- 
stand. So  live,  that  to  gain  a  permanent  posi- 
tion for  itself,  that  competitor  must  needs  be 
completely  eliminated.  To  that  competitor — the 
Utica  &  Black  Eiver  Eailroad — we  must  now  turn 
our  attention. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  UTICA  &  BLACK  KIVEK 

beginnings  of  the  Utica  &  Black  River 
Railroad  go  away  back  to  1852 — the  year  of 
the  real  completion  and  opening  of  the  Water- 
town  &  Rome.  The  fact  that  not  only  could  that 
line  be  built  successfully,  but  that  there  would 
come  to  it  immediately  a  fine  flow  of  traffic  was 
not  without  its  effect  upon  the  staunch  old  city  of 
Utica,  which  had  felt  rather  bitterly  about  the 
loss,  to  its  smaller  neighbor,  Rome,  of  the  pres- 
tige of  being  the  gateway  city  to  the  North  Coun- 
try. From  the  beginning  Utica  had  been  that 
gateway.  Long  ago  we  read  of  the  fine  records 
that  were  made  on  the  old  post-road  from  Utica 
through  Martinsburgh  and  Watertown  to  Sac- 
kett's  Harbor.  The  Black  River  valley  was  the 
logical  pathway  to  the  Northern  Tier.  The  peo- 
ple who  dwelt  there  felt  that  God  had  made  it  so. 
And  now  the  infamy  had  come  to  pass  that  a  new 
man-built  highway  had  ignored  it  completely ;  had 
passed  far  to  the  west  of  it. 

Spurred  by  such  feelings,  stung  by  a  new-found 

143 


144  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

feeling  of  isolation,  the  people  of  Lewis  County 
held  a  mass  meeting  on  a  December  evening  in 
1852,  at  Lowville,  to  which  their  county-seat  had 
already  been  moved  from  Martinsburgh,  but  two 
miles  distant.  They  set  the  fire  to  a  popular  feel- 
ing that  already  demanded  a  railroad  through  the 
natural  easy  gradients  of  the  valley  of  the  Black 
Eiver.  The  blaze  of  indignation  spread.  Within 
a  fortnight  similar  meetings  were  held  at  Boon- 
ville  and  at  Theresa.  And  within  a  few  months 
the  Black  River  Railroad  Company  was  organ- 
ized at  the  first  of  these  towns  with  a  capital  of 
$1,200,000  and  Herkimer,  in  the  valley  of  the  Mo- 
hawk, was  designated  as  its  probably  southern 
terminal. 

Once  again  Utica  writhed  in  civic  anguish.  But 
in  three  days  gave  answer  to  this  proposed,  second 
blow  to  her  prestige  by  the  organization  of  the 
Black  River  &  Utica  Railroad,  with  a  capital  of 
$1,000,000 — a  tentative  figure  of  course.  As  an 
evidence  of  her  good  faith  she  raised  a  cash  fund 
for  the  employment  of  Daniel  C.  Jenney  to  sur- 
vey a  route  for  her  own  railroad,  north  and 
straight  through  to  French  Creek  (about  to  be- 
come the  present  village  of  Clayton)  one  hundred 
miles  distant. 

To  this  move  Rome  replied.  Having  acquired 
a  new  and  exclusive  prestige,  she  was  quite  un- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  145 

willing  that  it  should  be  lost,  or  even  dimmed. 
She  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  she  was,  in 
her  own  eyes,  of  course,  the  logical  gateway  to 
the  Black  Eiver  country,  as  well  as  to  the  eastern 
shore  of  Lake  Ontario,  to  which  the  "Watertown  & 
Eome  already  led.  There  was  a  natural  pass  that 
rested  just  behind  her  that  led  to  Boonville  and 
the  upper  waters  of  the  Black  Eiver.  Had  not 
this  natural  route  been  recognized  some  years  be- 
fore by  the  builders  of  the  Black  Eiver  Canal,  who 
readily  had  chosen  it  for  the  waterway,  which  to 
this  day  remains  in  operation  through  it? 

Eome  felt  that  her  argument  was  quite  irrefu- 
table. To  support  it,  however,  she  pledged  her- 
self to  furnish  terminal  grounds  for  the  new  line 
at  $250  an  acre,  in  addition  to  subscribing 
$450,000  to  the  stock  and  bonds  of  the  company. 
Money  talks.  Utica  came  back  with  an  offer  of 
terminal  lands  at  $200  an  acre  and  proffered  a 
subscription  of  $650,000  to  the  securities  of  the 
Black  Eiver  &  Utica.  A  meeting  was  held.  The 
mooted  question  of  a  southern  terminal  was  put 
to  vote.  Eome  and  Utica  tied  with  twenty-two 
votes  each;  Herkimer,  despite  her  suggestion  of 
the  valley  of  Canada  Creek  as  a  natural  pathway 
for  the  new  line  north  to  the  watershed  of  the 
Black  Eiver,  had  but  two  votes.  She  promptly 
withdrew  from  the  contest. 


146  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Money   does  talk.     Eventually  Utica  had  the 
terminal  of  the  Black  Eiver  road,  even  though  the 
noble  Romans,  retiring  to  their  camp  in  a  blue 
funk  for  a  time  threatened  a  rival  line  straight 
north  from  their  town  to  Boonville  and  beyond. 
They  went  so  far  as  to  incorporate  this  company ; 
as  the  Ogdensburgh,  Clayton  &  Rome.     The  pro- 
moters of  the  Black  River  &  Utica  having  planned 
to  locate  their  line  in  the  low  levels  of  the  flats  of 
the  river,  the  Rome  group  said  that  they  would 
build  their  road  upon  the  higher  level,   rather 
closely  paralleling  the  ancient  state  highway  and 
so  making  especial  appeal  to  the  towns  along  it, 
which  felt  miffed  at  the  indifference  of  the  Utica 
group  to  them. 

In  the  long  run,  as  we  all  know,  the  road  was 
built  along  the  low  level  of  the  Black  River  valley, 
and  many  of  the  once  thriving  towns  along  the 
State  Road  left  stranded  high  and  dry.  The  road 
from  Rome  became  a  memory.  From  time  to 
time  the  suggestion  has  been  revived,  however — 
in  my  boyhood  days  we  had  the  fine  classical  sug- 
gestion of  the  Rome  &  Carthage  Railroad  all 
ready  for  incorporation — but  there  is  little  pros- 
pect now  that  such  a  road  will  ever  be  built.  The 
times  are  not  propitious  now  for  that  sort  of 
enterprise. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  147 

Ground  was  broken  at  Utica  for  the  new  Black 
Eiver  line  on  August  27,  1853.  There  was  a  deal 
of  ceremony  to  the  occasion;  no  less  a  personage 
than  the  distinguished  Governor  Horatio  Sey- 
mour, being  designated  to  make  remarks  appro- 
priate to  it.  And,  as  was  the  custom  in  those  days 
for  such  an  event,  there  was  a  parade,  music  by 
the  bands  and  other  appropriate  festivities.  Con- 
struction, in  the  hands  of  Contractor  J.  S.  T. 
Stranahan,  of  Brooklyn,  went  ahead  with  great 
briskness.  Within  two  years  the  line  had  been 
builded  over  the  hard  rolling  country  of  the  upper 
Canada  Creek — it  included  the  crossing  of  a  deep 
gully  near  Trenton  Falls  by  a  high  trestle  (subse- 
quently replaced  by  a  huge  embankment) — to 
Boonville,  thirty-five  miles  distant  from  Utica. 

This  much  done,  the  Black  River  &  Utica  sub- 
sided and  became  apparently  a  semi-dormant  en- 
terprise— for  a  number  of  long  years.  The  prom- 
ises which  its  promoters  had  made  to  have  the 
line  completed  to  Clayton  by  the  first  of  July, 
1855,  apparently  were  forgotten.  These  had  been 
made  at  a  mass  meeting  of  the  enthusiastic  pro- 
ponents of  the  Ogdensburgh,  Clayton  &  Borne, 
held  at  Constableville  on  the  evening  of  Monday, 
August  22,  1853.  They  were  definite,  and  the 
Rome  crowd  under  them  badly  worsted.  But 
promises  were  as  easily  made  in  those  days  as  in 


148  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

these.    As    easily    accepted  .  .  .  and    as    easily 
broken. 

In  1857,  the  Black  River  &  Utica  Railroad  was 
operating  a  single  passenger  train  a  day,  between 
Utica  and  Boonville.  It  left  Boonville  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  arrived  at  Utica  at 
10:20  a.  m.  The  return  run  left  Utica  at  4:00 
p.  m.  and  arrived  at  Boonville  at  6:20  p.  m. 
Seventy-five  cents  was  charged  to  ride  from  Utica 
to  Trenton  and  $1.25  from  Utica  to  Boonville. 
The  little  road  then  had  four  locomotives,  the 
T.  S.  Faxton,  the  J.  Butter  field,  the  Boonville  and 
the  D.  C.  Jenney.  The  Faxton  hauled  the  pas- 
senger train,  and  a  young  man  from  Boonville, 
who  also  owned  a  coal-yard  there,  was  its  conduc- 
tor. His  name  was  Richard  Marcy  and  after- 
wards he  was  to  come  to  prominent  position,  not 
only  as  exclusive  holder  of  its  coal-selling  fran- 
chise for  a  number  of  years,  but  also  as  a  poli- 
tician of  real  parts. 

In  1858,  the  little  road  doubled  its  passenger 
service.  Now  there  were  two  passenger  trains  a 
day  in  each  direction.  And  each  was  at  least 
fairly  well-filled,  for  the  Black  River  &  Utica 
held  as  its  supreme  attraction  Trenton  Falls.  In- 
deed, if  it  had  not  been  for  the  prominence  of 
Trenton  Falls  as  a  resort  in  those  years,  it  is  quite 


and  Ogdensburgli  Railroad  149 

probable  that  a  good  many  folk  in  the  State  of 
New  York  would  never  have  even  heard  of  it. 

But  Trenton  Falls— Trenton  Falls  of  the  six- 
ties, of  the  fifties — all  the  way  back  to  the  late 
twenties,  if  you  please — here  was  a  place  to  be 
reckoned!  All  the  great  travelers  of  the  early 
half  of  the  last  century — European  as  well  as 
American — made  a  point  of  visiting  it.  The 
most  of  them  wrote  of  it  in  their  memoirs.  That 
indefatigable  tourist,  N.  P.  Willis,  could  not  miss 
this  exquisitely  beautiful  place — alas,  in  these  late 
days,  the  exquisitely  beautiful  place  has  fallen 
under  the  vandal  hands  of  power  engineers,  and 
the  exquisite  beauty  no  longer  is.  Trenton  Falls  is 
but  a  memory.  Yet  the  record  of  its  one-time 
magnificence  still  remains. 

".  .  .  The  company  of  strangers  at  Trenton  is 
made  somewhat  select  by  the  expense  and  diffi- 
culty of  access/'  wrote  Willis,  late  in  the  fifties. 
The  Black  River  &  Utica  had  then  barely  been 
opened  through  to  the  Falls.  "Most  who  come 
stay  two  or  three  days,  but  there  are  usually 
boarders  here  who  stay  for  a  longer  time.  .  .  . 
Nothing  could  be  more  agreeable  than  the  footing 
upon  which  these  chance-met  residents  and  their 
daily  accessions  of  newcomers  pass  their  even- 
ings and  take  strolls  up  the  ravine  together;  and 
for  those  who  love  country  air  and  romantic  ram- 


150  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

bles  without  'dressing  for  dinner '  or  waltzing  by 
a  band,  this  is  *  a  place  to  stay. '  These  are  not  the 
most  numerous  frequenters  of  Trenton,  however. 
It  is  a  very  popular  place  of  resort  from  every 
village  within  thirty  miles;  and  from  ten  in  the 
morning  until  four  in  the  afternoon  there  is  gay 
work  with  the  country  girls  and  their  beaux — 
swinging  under  trees,  strolling  about  in  the  woods 
near  the  house,  bowling,  singing,  and  dancing — 
at  all  of  which  (owing,  perhaps  to  a  certain  gypsy- 
ish  promiscuosity  of  my  nature  that  I  never  could 
aristocrify  by  the  keeping  of  better  company)  I 
am  delighted  to  be,  at  least,  a  looker-on.  The 
average  number  of  these  visitors  from  the  neigh- 
borhood is  forty  or  fifty  a  day,  so  that  breakfast 
and  tea  are  the  nearest  approach  to  'dress  meals ' 
— the  dinner,  though  profuse  and  dainty  in  its 
fare,  being  eaten  in  what  is  commonly  thought  to 
be  rather  'mixed  society.*  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that,  from  French  intermixture,  or  some  other 
cause,  the  inhabitants  of  this  region  are  a  little 
peculiar  in  their  manners.  There  is  an  uncon- 
sciousness or  carelessness  of  others7  observation 
and  presence  that  I  have  hitherto  seen  only 
abroad.  We  have  songs,  duets  and  choruses, 
sung  here  by  village  girls,  within  the  last  few 
days,  in  a  style  that  drew  all  in  the  house  to  listen 
very  admiringly;  and  even  the  ladies  all  agree 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  151 

that  there  have  been  very  pretty  girls  day  after 
day  among  them.  I  find  they  are  Fourierites  to 
the  extent  of  common  hair-brush  and  other  per- 
sonal furniture — walking  into  anybody's  room  for 
the  temporary  repairs  which  belles  require  on 
their  travels,  and  availing  themselves  of  whatever 
was  therein,  with  a  simplicity,  perhaps,  a  little 
transcendental.  I  had  obtained  the  extra  privi- 
lege for  myself  of  a  small  dressing  room  apart, 
for  which  I  presumed  the  various  trousers  and 
other  merely  masculine  belongings  would  be  pro- 
tective scarecrows  sufficient  to  keep  out  these 
daily  female  invaders,  but,  walking  in  yesterday, 
I  found  my  combs  and  brushes  in  active  employ, 
and  two  very  tidy  looking  girls  making  themselves 
at  home  without  shutting  the  door  and  no  more 
disturbed  by  my  entree  than  if  I  had  been  a  large 
male  fly.  As  friends  were  waiting  I  apologized 
for  intruding  long  enough  to  take  a  pair  of  boots 
from  under  their  protection,  but  my  presence  was 
evidently  no  interruption.  One  of  the  girls  (a 
tall  figure,  like  a  woman  in  two  syllables  con- 
nected by  a  hyphen  at  the  waist)  continued  to  look 
at  the  back  of  her  dress  in  the  glass,  and  the  other 
went  on  threading  her  most  prodigal  chevelure 
with  my  doubtless  very  embarrassed  though  un- 
resisting hair-brush,  and  so  I  abandoned  the  field, 
as  of  course  I  was  expected  to  do  ...  I  do  not 


152  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

know  that  they  would  go  to  the  length  of  'frater- 
nizing' one's  tooth-brush,  but  with  the  exception 
of  locking  up  that  rather  confidential  article,  I 
give  in  to  the  customs  of  the  country,  and  have 
ever  since  left  open  door  to  the  ladies.  ..." 

We  have  drifted  away  for  the  moment  from  the 
railroad.  I  wanted  to  show,  through  Mr.  Willis 's 
observant  eyes,  the  Northern  New  York  of  the  day 
that  the  Black  Eiver  &  Utica  was  first  being 
builded.  One  other  excerpt  has  observed  the 
various  sentiments,  sacred  and  profane,  penciled 
about  the  place  and  its  excellent  hotel  and  con- 
cludes : 

".  .  .  Farther  off  ...  a  man  records  the  ar- 
rival of  himself  'and  servant,'  below  which  is  the 
following  inscription : 

"  'G.  Squires,  wife  and  two  babies.  No  ser- 
vant, owing  to  the  hardness  of  the  times.' 

"And  under  this  again; 

"  *G.  W.  Douglas,  and  servant.  No  wife  and 
babies,  owing  to  the  hardness  of  the  times.'  " 

The  tremendous  popularity  of  Trenton  Falls  in 
those  early  days  was  a  vast  aid  to  the  slender 
passenger  possibilities  of  the  early  Black  Eiver 
&  Utica.  There  was  not  much  else  for  it  south  of 
Boonville.  True  it  was  that  at  that  thriving  vil- 
lage it  tapped  the  fairly  busy  Black  River  Canal 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  153 

which  led  down  to  the  navigable  upper  waters  of 
that  river.  Yet  this  was  hardly  satisfactory  to 
the  progressive  folk  of  the  Black  River  valley. 
They  kept  the  project  alive.  And  once  when  the 
old  company's  continued  existence  became  quite 
hopeless  they  helped  effect  a  complete  reorgan- 
ization of  it,  under  the  title  of  the  Utica  &  Black 
River.  This  was  formally  accomplished,  March 
31,  1860.  As  the  Utica  &  Black  River,  the  new 
railroad  came,  upon  its  completion  into  the  North 
Country,  into  a  season  of  continued  prosperity. 
It  did  not  share  the  vast  reversals  of  fortune  of 
its  larger  competitor,  the  Rome,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh.  Through  all  the  years  of  its  com- 
plete operation  as  a  separate  railroad  it  never 
missed  its  six  per  cent  dividends.  It  was  a  de- 
light, both  to  its  owners  and  to  the  communities  it 
served. 

The  Black  River  road  thrust  itself  into  Low- 
ville  in  the  fall  of  1868.  Four  years  later  it  had 
reached  Carthage.  The  next  year  it  was  at  the 
bank  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  at  Clayton.  And  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  following  year  it  again  touched 
with  its  rails  the  shore  of  that  great  river;  at 
both  Morristown  and  Ogdensburgh.  As  rail- 
roads went,  in  those  days,  it  was  at  last  a 
through-route;  with  important  connections  at 


154  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

both  of  its  terminals.  At  Utica  it  had  fine  shop 
and  yard  facilities  adjoining  the  tracks  of  the 
New  York  Central  &  Hudson  River  Eailroad, 
whose  venerable  passenger  station  it  shared. 
And,  when  at  one  time,  it  sought  a  close  personal 
connection  for  itself  with  the  Ontario  &  Western 
there,  it  builded  an  expensive  bridge  connection 
over  the  New  York  Central  tracks.  This  bridge 
is  now  gone,  but  the  piers  remain. 

At  both  Clayton  and  Ogdensburgh  the  Black 
River  road  possessed  fine  waterside  terminals. 
Its  station  in  the  latter  city  still  stands ;  for  many 
years  it  has  been  the  local  storage  warehouse  of 
Armour  &  Co.,  of  Chicago. 

In  the  busy  months  that  the  Utica  &  Black 
River  was  building  its  line  up  through  Jefferson 
and  St.  Lawrence  counties,  a  railroad  was  being 
builded  from  it  at  Carthage  down  the  lower  val- 
ley of  the  Black  River  to  Watertown  and  to  Sac- 
kett's  Harbor.  This  was  distinctly  a  local  enter- 
prise; the  Carthage,  Watertown  &  Sackett's  Har- 
bor, financed  and  built  almost  entirely  by  Water- 
townians  and  retaining  its  separate  corporate  ex- 
istence until  but  a  few  years  ago.  It  was  in- 
spired not  only  by  the  great  success  of  the  Rome, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  at  that  time,  but  by 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  155 

» 

the  quite  natural  desire  of  the  one  really  indus- 
trial city  of  the  North  Country  to  have  competi- 
tive railroad  service.  There  have  been  few  times 
when  there  were  not  in  Watertown  a  generous 
plenty  of  men  who  stood  ready  to  put  their  hands 
deep  into  their  pockets  in  order  to  promote  an 
enterprise  whose  value  seemed  so  obvious  and  so 
genuinely  important  to  the  town. 

So  it  was  then  that  the  Carthage,  Watertown 
&  Sackett's  Harbor  first  came  into  its  existence, 
there  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  sixties ;  in  the  very 
year  that  Watertown  itself  was  first  becoming  a 
city.  Its  officers  and  directors  as  it  was  first 
organized  were  as  follows : 

President,  GEORGE  B.  PHELPS,  Watertown 
Secretary  and  Treasurer,  LOTUS  INQALLS,  Watertown 
Engineer,  F.  A.  HINDS,  Watertown 

Directors 

George  P.  Phelps,  Watertown         Hiram  Converse,  Watertown 
Lotus  Ingalls,  Watertown  Theodore  Canfield, 

Norris  Winslow,  Watertown  Sackett's  Harbor 

Pearson  Mundy,  Watertown  Walter  B.  Camp, 

L.  D.  Doolittle,  Watertown  Sackett's  Harbor 

George  H.  Sherman,  Watertown      David  Dexter,  Black  River 
George  A.  Bagley,  Watertown         William  N.  Coburn,  Carthage 
Alexander  Brown,  Carthage 

A  little  later  Mr.  Hinds  was  succeeded  as  the 
road's  Engineer,  by  L.  B.  Cook  also  of  Water- 


156  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

town.  And  eventually  Mr.  Bagley  succeeded  Mr. 
Phelps,  as  its  President,  George  W.  Knowlton,  be- 
coming its  Vice-President. 

To  encourage  the  new  line,  which  it  prepared 
itself  to  operate,  the  Utica  &  Black  River  made 
quite  a  remarkable  contract.  Shorn  of  its  verbi- 
age it  agreed  to  give  the  C.  W.  &  S.  H.  forty 
per  cent  of  the  gross  revenue  that  should  arise 
upon  the  line.  This  contract  in  a  very  few  years 
arose  to  bedevil  the  railroad  situation  in  the 
North  Country.  As  the  paper  industry  began  to 
expand  there,  and  huge  mills  to  multiply  along  the 
lower  reaches  of  the  Black  River,  this  contract 
grew  irksome  indeed  to  the  U.  &  B.  R.  R.  Finally 
it  sought  to  modify  its  terms,  very  greatly.  The 
Carthage,  Watertown  &  Sackett's  Harbor,  quite 
naturally  refused.  " After  all,"  it  said,  through 
its  President,  the  late  George  A.  Bagley,  "what  is 
a  contract  but — a  contract  1 ' J 

The  Utica  road  pressed  its  point.  It  finally 
went  down  to  New  York  and  gained  a  promise 
from  Roswell  P.  Flower  that  the  agreement  would 
be  greatly  mollified,  if  not  abrogated.  It  did 
seem  absurd  that  a  carload  of  paper  moving  eigh- 
teen miles  from  Watertown  to  Carthage  and 
seventy-five  from  Carthage  to  Utica  should  pay 
forty  per  cent  of  its  charges  to  the  road  upon 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  157 

which  it  had  moved  but  eighteen  miles.  Yet,  a 
contract  is  a  contract. 

Governor  Flower  went  up  to  Watertown  and 
put  the  matter  before  the  officers  and  directors  of 
the  C.  W.  &  S.  H.  But,  led  by  the  stout-hearted 
Bagley,  they  refused  to  move,  a  single  inch. 

"I've  given  my  promise, "  stormed  Roswell  P. 
Flower,  '  '  that  you  would  do  the  right  thing  in  this 
matter.  And  in  New  York  I  am  known  as  a  man 
who  always  keeps  his  word." 

Bagley  said  nothing.  The  meeting  ended 
abruptly — in  all  the  bitterness  of  disagreement. 
The  Utica  &  Black  Elver  decided  upon  a  master 
stroke ;  it  would  terminate  paying  its  rental,  based 
chiefly  on  this  forty  per  cent  division  to  its  leased 
road.  That  would  cause  trouble.  The  Carthage, 
Watertown  &  Sackett's  Harbor  was,  itself,  liable 
to  its  bondholders,  for  the  mortgage  that  they  held 
against  it.  It  would  have  to  pay  their  interest. 
Without  receiving  its  rental  money  from  the  Black 
River  road  it  would-be  hard  pressed  indeed  to 
meet  these  coupons.  It  looked  as  if  it  might  have 
to  go  into  receivership,  even  though  at  that  mo- 
ment its  stock  had  reached  well  above  par. 

The  situation  was  saved  for  it  by  a  New  York 
banking  house,  Vermilye  &  Company,  who  sent  a 
lawyer  up  to  Watertown  who  examined  the 
famous  contract  and  pronounced  it  perfectly 


158  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

valid.  The  Vermilye's  then  announced  their  will- 
ingness to  advance  the  C.  W.  &  S.  H.  the  money 
to  meet  its  interest  charges — for  an  indefinite 
period.  After  which  the  Black  River  people  came 
down  a  peg  or  two  and  bought  the  stock  and  bonds 
of  their  leased  road,  at  par.  While  the  city  of 
Watertown  and  some  of  its  adjoining  communities 
possessed  of  a  sudden  and  unexpected  wealth  re- 
funded a  portion  of  their  taxes  for  a  year  or  two. 
Mr.  Bagley  had  won  his  point.  He  had  the  re- 
ward of  a  good  deed  well  performed.  He  had  an- 
other reward.  His  salary  as  President  of  the 
Carthage,  Watertown  &  Sackett's  Harbor  had  re- 
mained unpaid;  for  a  number  of  years.  He  col- 
lected back  pay  from  the  Black  Eiver  settlement; 
for  several  years  at  the  rate  of  $15,000  a  year. 

I  have  anticipated.  We  are  building  the  Car- 
thage, Watertown  &  Sackett  's  Harbor,  not,  as  yet, 
operating  it.  The  construction  of  the  line  began 
late  in  the  year  of  1870,  westward  from  Carthage, 
its  base  of  supplies.  The  road  from  Watertown 
to  the  Harbor — eleven  miles — was  constructed  in 
the  following  summer.  After  a  disagreeable  fight 
with  the  E.  W.  &  O.,  its  main  line  finally  was 
crossed  at  grade  at  Mill  Street,  closely  adjacent 
to  the  passenger  stations  of  the  two  rival  roads 
and,  after  following  the  embankment  for  a  mile, 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  159 

once  again  at  Watertown  Junction.  Its  entrance 
into  the  Harbor  was  accomplished  over  the  right- 
of-way  of  the  former  Sackett's  Harbor  &  Ellis- 
burgh,  which  had  been  abandoned  a  decade  before. 
It  utilized  the  old  depot  there. 

George  W.  Flower,  the  first  Mayor  of  Water- 
town,  who  we  have  already  seen  in  these  pages, 
had  the  contract  for  the  building  of  this  section 
of  the  line.  He  rented  a  locomotive  from  his  com- 
petitor and  obtained  the  loan  of  engineer,  Frank 
W.  Smith.  For  himself,  he  kept  oversight  over 
the  progress  from  the  saddle  seat  of  a  fine  horse 
that  he  possessed. 

This  section  of  the  road  was  completed  and 
ready  for  operation  early  in  '74.  But  because  of 
certain  legal  complications  the  Utica  &  Black 
River  refused  to  accept  it  at  once.  A  large  cele- 
bration had  been  planned  at  the  Harbor  for  the 
Fourth  of  July  that  year  and  rather  than  disap- 
point the  folk  who  wanted  to  go  down  to  it,  Mr. 
Flower  took  his  leased  locomotive  and  hitched 
behind  it  a  long  line  of  flat  contractor's  cars, 
equipped  with  temporary  wooden  benches.  His 
improvised  excursion  train  did  a  good  business 
and  he  realized  a  comfortable  sum  from  the  haul- 
age of  both  passengers  and  freight  before  the  line 
was  turned  over  to  the  Utica  &  Black  River  for 
operation. 


160  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

The  first  passenger  station  of  that  line  in 
Watertown  was  in  a  former  brick  residence  in 
Factory  Street,  just  beyond  the  junction  with 
Mill.  It  was  small,  not  overclean  and  most  incon- 
venient. But  a  few  years  later,  the  U.  &  B.  E. 
built  the  handsome  passenger  station  at  the 
Northeast  corner  of  Public  Square  which  for 
many  years  now  has  been  the  office  and  head- 
quarters of  the  Marcy,  Buck  &  Kiley  Company. 
Its  original  brick  freight-house  nearby — after- 
wards relieved  by  the  construction  of  a  most  sub- 
stantial stone  freight-house  at  the  foot  of  Court 
Street — still  stands.  Back  of  it  a  block  or  so  was 
the  round-house.  I  remember  that  round-house 
well.  It  was  a  favorite  resort  of  mine  through 
some  extremely  tender  years  of  youth. 

I  have  not  set  down  the  earliest  lists  of  officers 
of  the  Utica  road.  They  are  not  particularly 
germane  to  this  record.  It  is,  perhaps,  enough 
for  it  to  know  that,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Carthage,  Watertown  &  Sackett's  Harbor — which, 
as  we  have  just  seen,  was  financed  chiefly  by  the 
Flowers,  the  Knowltons,  George  A.  Bagley  and 
George  B.  Phelps,  of  Watertown— the  U.  &  B.  R. 
as  reorganized,  was  constructed  and  managed  al- 
most exclusively  by  Uticans — John  Thorn,  Isaac 
Maynard,  Theodore  Faxon  and  John  Butterfield 


and  0  gdensburgli  Railroad  161 

—and  New  Yorkers— Robert  Lenox  Kennedy, 
John  J.  Kennedy  (who  afterwards  had  a  promi- 
nent role  in  the  early  financing  of  the  Canadian 
Pacific)  and  others. 

Charles  Millar  was  the  first  Superintendent  of 
the  road.  He  was  succeeded,  along  about  1865, 
by  Hugh  Crocker,  who  a  couple  of  years  later 
was  killed  while  in  the  cab  of  a  locomotive  run- 
ning between  Lyons  Falls  and  Glendale.  It  was 
in  the  season  of  high  water  and  the  Black  River 
was  following  its  usual  springtime  custom  of  over- 
flowing the  flats  of  the  upper  valley.  The  rail- 
road was  fresh  and  green  and  young.  The  water 
undermined  its  embankments  and  sent  Crocker's 
locomotive  tumbling  over  upon  its  side;  and 
Crocker  to  his  death.  J.  D.  Schultz,  who  still  is 
residing  in  Glendale  and  who  is  one  of  the  best- 
known  of  the  pioneers  of  the  old  R.  W.  &  0.  in 
his  own  arms  carried  young  Crocker's  body  out 
of  the  wreck.  It  was  a  most  pathetic  incident. 
Yet  it  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  one  well  worth 
recording  here,  that  in  its  entire  thirty-one  years 
of  operation  not  one  passenger  was  killed  while 
riding  upon  the  Utica  &  Black  River. 

The  unfortunate  Crocker  was  succeeded  by 
Addison  Day,  who  we  already  have  seen  upon  the 
R.  W.  &  0.  as  an  early  and  distinguished  Superin- 
tendent. A  little  later  Thomas  W.  Spencer,  who 


162  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

had  been  the  Construction  Engineer  of  the  road, 
replaced  Day,  and  in  1872,  J.  Fred  Maynard,  son 
of  Isaac  Maynard  of  Utica,  assumed  the  operat- 
ing management  of  the  road,  first  with  the  title  of 
Superintendent  and  eventually  as  its  Vice-Pre si- 
dent  and  General  Manager.  He  remained  in  that 
post  through  the  remainder  of  the  operating  exis- 
tence of  the  road. 

Steadily  the  Black  Eiver  sought  to  improve  its 
service.  As  it  succeeded  in  so  doing  it  became 
more  and  more  of  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  E.  W. 
&  0.  It  touched  that  system  at  three  points  only 
— but  they  were  important  points.  It  was  a 
slightly  longer  route  into  Watertown  from  the 
New  York  Central's  main  stem,  but  considerably 
shorter  to  both  Philadelphia — where  it  crossed 
the  E.  W.  &  O.  at  a  precise  right-angle — and 
Ogdensburgh.  At  the  first  of  these  two  last  towns 
it  developed  an  irritating  habit  of  holding  its 
trains  until  the  Eome  road  train  had  come,  in 
hopes  of  luring  Ogdensburgh  passengers  away 
from  it  and  getting  them  in  to  their  destination 
at  an  earlier  hour  than  they  had  hoped.  Several 
times  it  was  suggested  that  the  roads  pool  their 
interests  and  work  in  harmony.  For  one  reason 
or  another  this  was  accomplished  but  once — the 
E.  W.  &  O.  management  almost  always  opposed 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  163 

such  plans.  It  apparently  preferred  to  play  the 
lone  hand. 

The  Utica  &  Black  River  had  a  very  consider- 
able tourist  advantage  in  reaching  the  St.  Law- 
rence River  at  Clayton,  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
Thousand  Island  district,  instead  of  at  Cape  Vin- 
cent, which  was  rather  remote  from  the  large  hotel 
and  cottage  sections.  It  established  its  own  boat 
connections  with  the  John  Thorn,  as  the  flagship 
of  its  fleet. 

John  Thorn's  name  and  personality  were  again 
reflected  in  a  fine  coal-burning,  Schenectady-built 
locomotive,  which  also  bore  his  name  (the  U.  & 
B.  R.  in  those  days  had  a  decided  penchant  for  the 
engines  that  the  Ellises  were  building  at  Schenec- 
tady).  Its  motive-power  was  almost  always  in 
the  pink  of  condition,  brightly  painted  like  its 
cars,  which  bore  the  same  shade  of  yellow  upon 
their  sides  that  had  been  borrowed  from  the  Lake 
Shore  &  Michigan  Southern.  Like  the  R.  W. 
&  0.,  the  locomotives  were  all  named.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  John  Thorn,  there  were  the  Isaac  May- 
nard,  the  DeWitt  C.  West  (named  after  a  resident 
of  Lowville,  who  was  an  early  president  of  the 
road),  the  Theodore  Faxton,  the  Fred  S.  Easton, 
the  Charles  Millar,  the  John  Butterfield,  the  J.  F. 
Maynard,  the  Ludlow  Patton,  the  A.  G.  Brower, 
the  Lewis  Lawrence,  the  D.  B.  Goodwin,  and 


164  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

others  too.  The  road  at  the  end  of  the  seventies 
had  a  fleet  of  about  twenty  locomotives. 

There  was  one  time,  at  least,  when  the  upkeep 
of  the  motive  power  suffered  a  real  shock.  I  am 
referring  to  the  noisy  way  in  which  the  road 
entered  Watertown,  by  the  explosion  of  the  loco- 
motive Charles  Millar,  No.  4,  near  the  Mill  Street 
crossing  there  on  May  9,  1872.  It  was  one  of  the 
few  accidents,  however,  in  the  entire  history  of 
the  Utica  &  Black  Eiver.  Augustus  Unser,  better 
known  as  ' '  Gus ' '  Unser,  of  Watertown  was  at  that 
time  engineer  of  the  Millar,  which  was  one  of  the 
earliest  wood-burners  that  the  road  ever  pos- 
sessed— it  did  not  begin  the  installation  of  coal 
grates  until  1874.  Unser  was  standing  in  the  cab 
at  the  moment  of  the  explosion,  talking  to  Jacob 
H.  Herman — better  known  as  "Jake"  Herman — 
who  was  at  that  time  conductor  on  the  Eome  road. 

Without  the  slightest  warning  came  the  ex- 
plosion. There  was  a  terrific  roar  and  a  crash, 
followed  by  a  rain  of  small  engine  parts  over 
a  goodly  portion  of  Watertown.  Fortunately 
neither  Unser  nor  Herman  were  seriously  in- 
jured. An  investigation  into  the  cause  of  the 
wreck,  which  tore  the  Millar  into  an  unrecogniz- 
able mass  of  metal,  failed  to  develop  the  cause 
of  the  accident.  It  was  generally  supposed,  how- 
ever, that  the  engine-crew  had  permitted  the  water 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  165 

in  the  boiler  to  fall  below  the  level  of  the  crown- 
sheet. 

Back  of  the  highly  developed  and  independent 
Utica  &  Black  River  of  a  decade  later  there  stood 
a  pretty  well  developed  human  organization. 
John  Thorn  was  its  President ;  the  head  and  front 
of  its  aggressive  and  alert  policy.  The  full 
official  roster  was,  in  1882 : 

President,  JOHN  THORN,  Utica 

Vice-Pres.  and  Gen'l  Man'g'r,  J.  F.  MAYNAED,  Utica 

Treasurer,  ISAAC  MAYNAED,  Utica 

Secretary,  W.  E.  HOPKINS,  Utica 

Gen'l  Supt.,  E.  A.  VAN  HOBNE,  Utica 

Asst.  Supt.,  H.  W.  HAMMOND,  Utica 

Gen.  Pass,  and  Fgt.  Agent,  THEO.  BUTTEBFIELD,  Utica 

Directors 

Robt.  L.  Kennedy,  New  York          Edmund  A.  Graham,  Utica 
John  Thorn,  Utica  Theodore  S.  Sayre,  Utica 

Abijah  J.  Williams,  Utica  Abram  G.  Brower,  Utica 

Isaac  Maynard,  Utica  Russell  Wheeler,  Utica 

Lewis  Lawrence,  Utica  J.  F.  Maynard,  Utica 

William  J.  Bacon,  Utica  Daniel  B.  Goodwin,  Waterville 

Fred  S.  Easton,  Lowville 

The  final  thrust  of  the  Utica  &  Black  River  into 
the  sides  of  its  older  competitor,  whilst  that  com- 
petitor was  still  in  the  anguish  of  the  Sloan  ad- 
ministration of  its  affairs,  came  in  the  ferry  row 
up  at  Ogdensburgh.  By  1880  the  once-brisk  lake 


166  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

trade  of  that  port  had  fallen  to  low  levels.  The 
fourteen-foot  locks  of  the  Welland  Canal,  between 
Lakes  Ontario  and  Erie  had  failed  utterly  to  keep 
pace  with  the  development  of  carriers  upon  the 
upper  Lakes.  The  steamers  that  still  came  to  the 
elaborate  piers  of  the  old  Northern  Railroad  at 
Ogdensburgh — for  many  years  now,  the  Ogdens- 
burgh  &  Lake  Champlain — were  comparatively 
small  and  infrequent.  Buffalo  was  a  more  popu- 
lar and  a  more  accessible  port.  And  yet  the  time 
had  been  when  the  Northern  Railroad  had  had  a 
daily  service  between  Chicago  and  Ogdensburgh; 
some  fifteen  staunch  steamers  in  its  fleet. 

One  most  important  form  of  water-borne  traffic 
has  always  remained  at  Ogdensburgh,  however; 
the  ferry  route  across  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Pres- 
cott  upon  the  Canadian  shore  just  opposite. 
Prescott  is  not  only  upon  the  old  main  line  of  the 
Grand  Trunk  Railway  but  also  has  a  direct  rail- 
road connection  with  Ottawa  by  a  branch  of  the 
Canadian  Pacific  (formerly  the  Ottawa  and  St. 
Lawrence).  The  original  boat  upon  this  route 
was  a  small  three-car  craft,  the  Transit,  which 
was  owned  in  Prescott.  In  the  mid-seventies  this 
steamer  was  supplanted  by  the  staunch  steam  car- 
ferry,  William  Armstrong,  whose  whistle  was  re- 
puted to  be  the  loudest  and  the  most  awful  thing 
ever  heard  on  inland  waters  anywhere.  The 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  167 

Armstrong  speedily  became  one  of  the  fixtures 
of  Ogdensburgh.  Twice  she  sank,  under  exces- 
sive loading,  and  twice  she  was  again  raised  and 
replaced  in  service.  In  1919  she  was  sold  to  a 
firm  of  contractors  at  Trenton,  Ont.,  and  she  is 
still  in  use  as  a  drill-boat  in  the  vicinity  of  that 
village.  The  important  ferry  at  Ogdensburgh 
still  continues,  however,  under  the  direction  of 
Edward  Dillingham,  for  many  years  the  Rome 
road's  agent  in  that  city. 

To  compete  with  the  service  that  the  Armstrong 
rendered  the  E.  W.  &  0.  at  Ogdensburgh,  the 
Utica  &  Black  Eiver  along  about  1880  put  a  car- 
float  and  tug  into  a  hastily  contrived  ferry  be- 
tween its  station  grounds  at  Morristown,  eleven 
miles  up  the  river  from  Ogdensburgh  and  the 
small  Canadian  city  of  Brockville  just  opposite. 
Into  Brockville  came  the  Canadian  Pacific,  begin- 
ning to  feel  its  oats  and  pushing  its  rails  rapidly 
westward  each  month.  That  was  a  better  con- 
nection than  the  somewhat  longer  one  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  &  Ottawa,  and  gradually  freight  began 
deserting  the  old  ferry  for  this  new  one ;  with  the 
result  that  within  a  year  the  Armstrong  was 
moved  up  the  river  to  the  Morristown-Brockville 
crossing,  and  Ogdensburgh  gnashed  its  teeth  in 
its  despair.  It  appealed  to  the  Rome,  Watertown 
&  Odgensburgh  for  relief  in  the  situation. 


168  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

That  road  was  in  its  most  important  change  of 
management — the  succession  of  the  Parsons'  ad- 
ministration to  that  of  Samuel  Sloan.  Charles 
Parsons  had  had  his  eye  upon  the  Utica  &  Black 
Eiver  for  some  time.  It  was  a  potential  factor 
of  danger  within  his  territory.  Suppose  that  the 
Vanderbilts  should  come  along  and  purchase  it? 
That  nearly  happened  twice  in  the  early  eighties. 
There  was  strong  New  York  Central  sympathy 
and  interest  in  the  U.  &  B.  E.  It  showed  itself 
in  an  increase  of  traffic  agreements  and  cooper- 
ative working  arrangements.  The  Eome  road 
tried  to  offset  this  strengthening  alliance  of  the 
Utica  &  Black  Eiver  by  making  closer  working 
agreements  with  the  New  York,  Ontario  & 
Western,  which  it  touched  at  Eome,  at  Central 
Square  and  at  Oswego.  But  the  0.  &  W.  with  its 
wobbly  line  down  over  the  hills  to  New  York  was 
a  far  different  proposition  than  the  straight  main 
line  and  the  easy  grades  of  the  New  York  Central. 
It  is  possible  that  had  the  West  Shore,  which  was 
completed  through  from  New  York  to  Buffalo  in 
the  summer  of  1883,  been  successful,  it  might 
eventually  have  succeeded  in  absorbing  the  Eome, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh;  in  which  case  the 
New  York  Central  certainly  would  have  taken  the 
Utica  &  Black  Eiver,  and  the  competitive  system 
of  railroading  been  assured  to  the  North  Coun- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  169 

try  for  many  years  to  come.  But  that  possibility 
was  a  slight  one.  The  disastrous  collapse  of  the 
West  Shore  soon  ended  it. 

Yet  the  Utica  road  was  a  constant  menace  to 
Charles  Parsons.  No  one  knew  it  better  than  he. 
And  because  he  knew,  he  reached  out  and  ab- 
sorbed it;  within  three  years  of  the  day  that  he 
had  first  acquired  the  R.  W.  &  0.  He  not  only 
guaranteed  the  $2,100,000  of  outstanding  U.  & 
B.  R.  bonds  and  seven  per  cent  annually  upon  a 
$2,100,000  capitalization,  but,  in  order  to  make 
assurance  doubly  sure,  he  purchased  a  majority 
interest  of  $1,200,000  of  Utica  &  Black  River 
shares  and  turned  them  into  the  steadily  strength- 
ening treasury  of  the  Rome,  Watertown  &  Og- 
densburgh. The  Utica  road  formally  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  Rome  road  on  April  15,  1886. 
The  mere  announcement  of  the  transfer  was  a 
stunning  blow  to  the  North  Country. 

Now  Parsons  had  a  real  railroad  indeed;  more 
than  six  hundred  miles  of  line — the  Utica  road  had 
brought  him  180  miles  of  main  line  track.  Now 
he  had  over  eighty  locomotives  and  an  adequate 
supply  of  other  rolling  stock.  From  the  U.  & 
B.  R.  he  received  twenty-four  locomotives,  of  a 
size  and  type  excellent  for  that  day,  twenty- six 
passenger-cars,  fourteen  baggage-cars  and  361 
freight  cars.  But,  best  of  all,  he  was  now  king- 


170  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

pin  in  Northern  New  York.  There  was  none  to 
dispute  his  authority,  unless  you  were  to  regard 
the  tottering  Ogdensburgh  &  Lake  Champlain  as 
a  real  competitor.  He  was  king  in  a  real  king- 
dom. The  only  prospect  that  even  threatened  his 
monopoly  was  that  the  Vanderbilts  might  some- 
time take  it  into  their  heads  to  build  North  into 
the  valleys  of  the  Black  Eiver  and  the  St.  Law- 
rence. But  that  was  not  likely — not  for  the  mo- 
ment at  any  rate.  They  were  too  occupied  just 
then  in  counting  the  costs  of  the  terrific,  even 
though  successful,  battle  in  which  they  had 
smashed  the  West  Shore  into  pulp,  to  be  ready 
for  immediate  further  adventures.  If  they 
should  come  to  war  seven  or  eight  years  later, 
Parsons  would  be  ready  for  them.  In  the  mean- 
time he  set  out  to  reorganize  and  perfect  his 
merged  property.  He  wanted  once  again  to  make 
the  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  the  best  run 
railroad  in  the  state  of  New  York.  And  in  this 
he  all  but  completely  succeeded. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  BKISK  PAESONS'  REGIME 

WITH  the  Black  River  thoroughly  merged 
into  his  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh, 
Parsons  began  the  extremely  difficult  job  of  the 
merging  of  the  personnel  of  the  two  lines.  Brit- 
ton,  quite  naturally,  was  not  to  be  disturbed. 
On  the  contrary,  his  authority  was  to  be  very 
greatly  increased.  The  U.  &  B.  R.  operating 
forces  gave  way  to  his  domination.  On  the  other 
hand,  Theodore  Butterfield,  who  was  recognized 
as  a  traffic  man  of  unusual  astuteness  and  experi- 
ence, was  brought  from  Utica  to  Oswego  and  made 
General  Passenger  Agent  of  the  combined  prop- 
erty. The  shops  were  merged.  Most  of  the 
sixty-five  workers  of  the  Utica  shop  were  also 
moved  to  Oswego;  it  was  retained  only  for  the 
very  lightest  sort  of  repairs. 

As  soon  as  the  arrangements  could  be  made,  the 
U.  &  B.  R.  passenger  trains  were  brought  into 
the  R.  W.  &  0.  stations  at  both  Watertown  and 
Ogdensburgh;  while  the  time-tables  of  the  com- 

171 


172  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

bined  road  were  readjusted  so  as  to  make  Phila- 
delphia, where  the  two  former  competing,  main 
lines  crossed  one  another  at  right  angles,  a  gen- 
eral point  of  traffic  interchange,  similar  to  Rich- 
land.  Cape  Vincent  lost,  almost  in  a  single  hour, 
the  large  railroad  prestige  that  it  had  held  for 
thirty-three  long  years.  To  bind  it  more  closely 
with  the  Thousand  Island  resorts,  the  swift,  new 
steamer,  St.  Lawrence,  had  been  built  at  Clayton 
in  the  summer  of  1883,  and  at  once  crowned 
Queen  of  the  Kiver.  Now  the  St.  Lawrence  was 
used  in  the  Clayton-Alexandria  Bay  service  ex- 
clusively. For  a  number  of  years  service  was 
maintained  intermittently  between  the  Cape  and 
Alexandria  Bay  by  a  small  steamer — generally 
the  J.  F.  Maynard — but  after  a  time  even  this  was 
abandoned.  Until  the  coming  of  the  motor-car 
and  improved  state  highways,  Cape  Vincent  was 
all  but  marooned  from  the  busier  portions  of  the 
river. 

Clayton  gradually  was  developed  into  a  river 
gateway  of  importance.  The  Golden  Age  of 
the  Thousand  Islands,  during  the  season  of  huge 
summer  traffic — which  lasted  for  nearly  two  dec- 
ades— did  not  really  begin  until  about  1890.  Yet 
by  the  mid-eighties  it  was  beginning  to  blossom 
forth.  The  Eome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  of 
that  decade  knew  the  value  of  advertising.  It 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  173 

adopted  the  four-leaved  clover  as  its  emblem — 
the  long  stem  served  very  well  to  carry  the  at- 
tenuated line  that  ran  West  from  Oswego  to 
Eochester  and  to  Niagara  Falls — and  made  it  a 
famous  trade-mark  over  the  entire  face  of  the 
land.  It  was  emblazoned  upon  the  sides  of  all  its 
freight-cars.  Theodore  E.  Butterfield,  the  Gen- 
eral Passenger  Agent,  devised  this  interesting  em- 
blem for  it.  It  was  he  who  also  chose  the  French 
word,  bonheur,  for  the  clover  stem.  It  was,  as 
subsequent  events  proved,  a  most  fortuitous 
choice. 

Charles  Parsons,  having  merged  the  two  impor- 
tant railroads  of  Northern  New  York,  was  now 
engaged  in  rounding  out  his  system  as  a  com- 
plete and  well-contained  unit.  For  more  than  a 
decade  the  Lake  Ontario  Shore  extension  of  the 
B.  W.  &  0.  had  passed  close  to  the  city  of  Roches- 
ter through  the  then  village  of  Charlotte  (now  a 
ward  of  an  enlarged  Eochester),  and  had  touched 
that  city  only  through  indifferent  connections 
from  Charlotte.  Parsons,  at  Britton's  sugges- 
tion, decided  that  the  road  must  have  a  direct 
entrance  into  Eochester;  which  already  was  be- 
ginning its  abounding  and  wonderful  growth. 
The  two  men  found  their  opportunity  in  a  small 
and  sickly  suburban  railroad  which  ran  down  the 


174  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

east  bank  of  the  Genesee  from  the  northern  limits 
of  the  city  and  over  which  there  ran  from  time  to 
time  a  small  train,  propelled  by  an  extremely 
small  locomotive.  They  easily  acquired  that  road 
and  gradually  pushed  it  well  into  the  heart  of  the 
city ;  to  a  passenger  and  freight  terminal  in  State 
Street,  not  far  from  the  famed  Four  Corners.  To 
reach  this  terminal — upon  the  West  Side  of  the 
town — it  was  necessary  to  build  a  very  high  and 
tenuous  bridge  over  the  deep  gorge  of  the  Gene- 
see.  This  took  nearly  a  year  to  construct.  In- 
junction proceedings  had  been  brought  against  the 
construction  of  the  E.  W.  &  O.  into  the  heart  of 
the  city  of  Rochester.  Yet,  under  the  laws  of  that 
time,  these  were  ineffective  upon  the  Sabbath  day. 
Parsons  took  advantage  of  this  technical  defect 
in  the  statutes,  and  on  a  Sabbath  day  he  success- 
fully brought  his  railroad  into  its  largest  city. 

In  the  meantime  a  fine,  old-fashioned,  brick  resi- 
dence in  State  Street  had  been  acquired  for  a 
Rochester  passenger  terminal.  To  make  this 
building  serve  as  a  passenger-station,  and  be  in 
proper  relation  to  the  tracks,  it  was  necessary 
to  change  its  position  upon  the  tract  of  land  that 
it  occupied.  This  was  successfully  done,  and,  I 
believe,  was  the  record  feat  at  that  time  for  the 
moving  of  a  large,  brick  building.  The  bridge 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  175 

was  completed  and  the  station  opened  for  the 
regular  use  of  passenger  trains  in  the  fall  of  1887. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  Rome,  Watertown 
&  Ogdensburgh  was  slipping  so  stealthily  into 
Rochester,  it  was  building  two  other  extensions; 
neither  of  them  of  great  length,  but  each  of  them 
of  a  considerable  importance.  Away  back  in  1872 
it  had  leased  the  Syracuse,  Phoenix  &  New  York 
— a  proposed  competing  line  against  the  Lacka- 
wanna  between  Oswego  and  Syracuse,  which  had 
been  organized  two  or  three  years  before — but  the 
project  had  been  permitted  to  lie  dormant.  First 
it  lacked  the  necessary  funds  and  then  Samuel 
Sloan,  quite  naturally,  could  have  no  enthusiasm 
over  it.  Parsons  had  no  compunctions  of  that 
sort.  The  more  he  could  dig  into  Sloan  the  better 
he  seemed  to  like  it.  Moreover  the  Syracuse, 
Phoenix  &  New  York  involved  very  little  actual 
track  construction;  only  some  seventeen  miles  of 
track  from  Woodward's  to  Fulton,  which  was  very 
little  for  a  thirty-seven  mile  line.  From  Wood- 
ward's into  Syracuse  it  would  use  the  R.  W.  &  O's. 
own  rails,  put  in  long  before,  as  the  Syracuse 
Northern,  whilst  from  Fulton  into  Oswego  the  On- 
tario &  Western  was  most  glad  to  sell  trackage 
rights. 


176  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

The  seventeen-mile  link  was  easily  laid  down; 
a  sort  of  local  summer  resort  was  created  at 
Three  River  Point  upon  it,  and  five  passenger 
trains  a  day,  in  each  direction,  began  service  over 
it,  between  Syracuse  and  Oswego  in  the  early 
spring  of  1886.  In  that  same  summer  another 
extension  was  also  being  builded;  at  the  extreme 
northeastern  corner  of  the  property.  The  Grand 
Trunk  Railway  had  built  a  line  with  very  direct 
and  short-distance  Montreal  connections,  down 
across  the  international  boundary  to  Massena 
Springs,  in  St.  Lawrence  County — then  a  spa  of 
considerable  repute,  but  destined  to  become  a  few 
years  later,  with  the  development  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence water-power,  an  industrial  community  of 
great  standing  in  the  North  Country,  second  only 
to  Watertown  in  size  and  importance.  To  reach 
tiiis  new  line,  the  R.  W.  &  O.  put  down  thirteen 
miles  of  track  from  its  long  established  terminus 
at  Norwood,  and  moved  that  terminal  to  Massena 
Springs.  The  right-of-way  for  the  line  was  en- 
tirely donated  by  the  adjoining  property-holders. 
For  a  time  it  was  thought  that  an  important 
through  route  would  be  created  through  this  new 
gateway,  which  was  opened  in  March,  1886,  but 
somehow  the  traffic  failed  to  materialize.  And 
to  this  day  a  rail  journey  from  Watertown  to 
Montreal  remains  a  portentous  and  a  fearful 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  177 

thing.    Yet  the  two  cities  are  only  about  175  miles 
apart. 

Parsons  was,  in  heart  and  essence,  a  master  of 
the  strategy  of  railroad  traffic,  as  well  as  of  rail- 
road construction.  Whilst  he  was  making  the  im- 
portant link  between  Norwood  and  the  Grand 
Trunk  terminus  at  Massena  Springs,  but  thirteen 
miles  distant,  he  was  coquetting  with  the  Central 
Vermont — in  one  of  its  repeated  stages  of  re- 
organization— for  the  better  development  of  its 
lines  in  connection  with  the  Boston  &  Maine  and 
the  Maine  Central  through  to  the  Atlantic  at  Port- 
land. In  all  of  this  he  was  assisted  by  his  two 
most  capable  assistants,  E.  M.  Moore,  General 
Freight  Agent,  and  Mr.  Butterfield,  the  General 
Passenger  Agent.  Mr.  Butterfield  we  have  al- 
ready seen.  He  took  very  good  care  of  the  travel 
necessities  of  the  property.  Mr.  Moore  had 
been  with  it  for  many  years.  He,  too,  was  a 
seasoned  traffic  man.  More  than  this  he  was  a 
maker  of  traffic  men ;  from  his  office  came  at  least 
two  experts  in  this  specialty  of  railroad  salesman- 
ship— H.  D.  Carter,  who  rose  eventually  to  be 
Freight  Traffic  Manager  of  the  New  York  Central 
Lines,  and  Frank  L.  Wilson,  who  is  to-day  their 
Division  Freight  and  Passenger  Agent  at  Water- 
town.  Mr.  Wilson  bears  the  distinction  of  being 


178  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

the  only  officer  on  the  property  in  the  North  Coun- 
try who  also  was  an  officer  of  the  old  Rome,  Water- 
town  &  Ogdensburgh.  He  started  his  service  in 
Watertown  as  a  messenger-boy  for  the  Dominion 
Telegraph  Company  when  its  office  was  located  in 
the  old  Hanf  ord  store  at  the  entrance  of  the  Pad- 
dock Arcade.  Later  he  began  his  railroad  serv- 
ice with  the  E.  W.  &  0.  as  operator  at  Limerick 
Station.  From  that  time  forward  his  rise  was 
steady  and  constant. 

I  have  digressed  once  again.  We  left  Parsons 
strengthening  a  through  line  from  Suspension 
Bridge  to  Portland,  Maine,  through  Northern 
New  York  and  across  the  White  Mountains.  As 
an  earnest  of  his  interest  in  this  route  he  estab- 
lished, almost  as  soon  as  he  had  acquired  control 
of  the  Rome  road,  the  once-famous  White  Moun- 
tain Express.  In  an  earlier  chapter  we  have  seen 
how  the  local  Watertown  management  of  the  road 
had,  some  years  before,  set  up  a  through  sleep- 
ing-car service  in  the  summers  between  Water- 
town  and  Fabyan's;  using  its  fine  old  cars,  the 
Ontario  and  the  St.  Lawrence  for  this  service. 

The  White  Mountain  Express  of  the  Parsons' 
regime  was  a  far  different  thing  from  a  mere 
sleeping-car  service.  It  was  a  genuine  through- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  179 

train,  with  Wagner  sleeping-cars  all  the  way  from 
Chicago  to  Portland.  It  passed  over  the  rails  of 
the  B.  W.  &  0.  almost  entirely  by  night ;  and  be- 
cause of  the  high  speed  set  for  it  over  so  many 
miles  of  congested  single-track,  the  older  engi- 
neers refused  to  run  it.  The  younger  men  took 
the  gambling  chance  with  it.  And  while  they  ex- 
pected to  run  off  the  miserable  track  that  Samuel 
Sloan  had  left  for  Parsons,  and  which  could  not 
be  rebuilded  in  a  day  or  a  week  or  a  month  or  a 
year,  they  managed  fairly  well,  although  there 
were  one  or  two  times  when  the  accidents  to  this 
train  were  serious  affairs  indeed. 

There  comes  to  my  mind  even  now  the  dim 
memories  of  that  nasty  wreck  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  Parsons'  overlordship,  when  the  east- 
bound  White  Mountain,  traveling  at  fifty  miles  an 
hour,  came  a  terrible  cropper  at  Carlyon  (now 
known  as  Ashwood),  thirty  miles  west  of  Char- 
lotte. It  was  on  the  evening  of  the  27th  of  July, 
1883,  barely  six  weeks  after  Parsons  and  Britton 
had  taken  the  management  of  the  road  into  their 
hands.  The  White  Mountain,  in  charge  of  Con- 
ductor E.  Garrison,  had  left  Niagara  Falls,  very 
heavily  laden,  and  twenty  minutes  late,  at  7:30 
p.  m.,  hauled  by  two  of  the  road's  best  locomo- 
tives. It  consisted  of  a  baggage-car,  a  day-coach 


180  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

and  nine  sleepers;  six  of  these  Wagners,  and  the 
other  three  the  company's  own  cars,  the  Ontario, 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  DeKalb. 

A  fearful  wind  blowing  off  the  lake  had  dis- 
lodged a  recreant  box-car  from  the  facing-point 
siding  there  at  Carlyon  and  had  sent  it  trundling 
down  toward  the  oncoming  express.  In  the  driv- 
ing rain  the  train  thrust  its  nose  right  into  the 
clumsy  thing.  Derailment  followed.  The  lead- 
ing engine,  upon  which  Train  Despatcher  and  As- 
sistant Superintendent  W.  H.  Chauncey  was  rid- 
ing, was  thrown  into  the  ditch  at  one  side  of  the 
track,  and  the  trailing  engine  into  the  ditch  at  the 
other.  Its  engineer  and  fireman  were  killed  in- 
stantly. The  wreckage  piled  high.  It  caught  fire 
and  it  was  with  extreme  difficulty  that  the  flames 
were  extinguished.  In  that  memorable  calamity 
seventeen  lives  were  lost  and  forty  persons  seri- 
ously injured.  Yet  out  of  it  came  a  definite  bless- 
ing. Up  to  that  time  the  air-brake  had  never  been 
used  upon  the  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh. 
The  Carlyon  accident  forced  its  adoption. 

I  have  no  mind  to  linger  on  the  details  of  dis- 
asters such  as  this ;  or  of  the  one  at  Forest  Lawn 
a  little  later  when  a  suburban  passenger-train 
bound  into  Rochester  was  in  a  fearful  rear-end 
collision  with  the  delayed  west-bound  White 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  181 

Mountain  and  more  lives  were  sacrificed.  The 
Borne  road,  as  a  rule,  had  a  fairly  clean  record  on 
wrecks,  on  disastrous  ones  at  any  rate.  There 
was  in  1887  a  wretched  rear-end  collision  just  op- 
posite the  passenger  depot  at  Canton,  which  cost 
two  or  three  lives  and  made  Conductor  Omar  A. 
Hine  decide  that  he  had  had  quite  enough  of  ac- 
tive railroading.  And  shortly  before  this  there 
had  been  a  more  fortunate,  yet  decidedly  embar- 
rassing affair  down  on  the  old  Black  River  near 
Glenfield ;  the  breaking  of  a  side-rod  upon  a  loco- 
motive which  killed  the  engineer  and  seriously  de- 
layed a  distinguished  passenger  on  his  way  to  the 
Thousand  Islands — Grover  Cleveland,  then  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  was  taking  his  bride  for 
a  little  outing  upon  the  shores  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence Eiver.  A  few  years  later  Theodore  Roose- 
velt, in  the  same  post,  was  to  ride  up  over  that 
nice  picturesque  stretch  of  line.  Yet  was  to  see 
far  less  of  it  than  his  predecessor  had  seen.  At 
Utica  he  had  accepted  with  avidity  the  Superin- 
tendent 's  invitation  to  ride  in  the  engine-cab  of  his 
special.  He  swung  himself  quickly  up  into  it. 
Then  reached  into  his  pocket,  produced  a  small 
leather-bound  book  and  had  a  bully  time — reading 
all  the  way  to  Watertown. 

One  more  wreck  invites  our  attention,  and  then 
w^e  are  done  with  this  forever  grewsome  side  of 


182  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertoivn 

railroading:  This  last  a  spectacular  affair,  if 
you  please,  more  so  even  than  that  dire  business 
back  to  Carlyon.  The  Barnum  &  Bailey  circus 
was  a  pretty  regular  annual  visitor  to  Northern 
New  York  in  those  days.  It  began  coming  in 
1873  and  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
thereafter  it  hardly  missed  a  season — generally 
playing  Oswego  (where  once  the  tent  blew  down, 
during  the  afternoon  performance,  and  there  was 
a  genuine  panic),  Watertown  and  Ogdensburgh. 
In  this  particular  summer  week,  the  show  had 
gone  from  Watertown  to  Gouverneur,  where  it 
violated  its  tradition  and  abandoned  the  evening 
performance  in  order  that  it  might  promptly  en- 
train for  the  long  haul  to  Montreal  where  it  was 
due  to  play  upon  the  morrow. 

Going  down  the  steep  grade  at  Clark's  Cross- 
ing, two  miles  east  of  Potsdam,  the  axle  of  one 
of  the  elephant  cars,  in  one  of  the  sections,  broke 
and  the  train  piled  up  behind  it — a  fearful  and  a 
curious  mass  of  wreckage.  Fortunately  the  sacri- 
fice of  human  life  was  not  a  feature  of  this  acci- 
dent. But  the  loss  of  animal  life  was  very  heavy. 
Valuable  riding  horses,  trained  beasts  and  many 
rare  and  curious  animals  were  killed.  Into  the 
annals  of  Northern  New  York  it  all  went  as  a 
wonderful  night.  In  the  glare  of  great  bonfires 
men  and  women  from  many  climes  and  in  curious 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  183 

garb  stalked  solemnly  around  and  whispered 
alarmedly  in  tongues  strange  indeed  to  Potsdam 
and  its  vicinage.  Giraffes  and  elephants  and 
sacred  cows  found  refuge  in  Mr.  Clark's  barn. 
Outside  long  trenches  were  dug  for  the  burial  of 
the  wreck  victims.  John  0 'Sullivan,  for  forty 
years  station  agent  at  Potsdam,  and  now  resting 
honorably  from  his  labors,  says  that  it  was  the 
worst  day  that  he  ever  put  in. 

It  was  at  this  wreck  that  Ben  Batchelder,  whose 
name  brings  many  memories  to  every  old  E.  W. 
&  0.  man,  finding  that  his  wrecking  equipment 
was  entirely  inadequate  for  clearing  the  miniature 
mountain  range  of  debris  that  ran  along  the  track, 
put  the  Barnum  &  Bailey  elephants  at  work  clear- 
ing it.  Under  the  charge  of  their  keepers  these 
alien  animals  pulled  on  huge  chains  and  long  ropes 
and  slowly  cleared  the  iron.  Yet  it  was  not  until 
late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  following  day  that  the 
track  was  fully  restored  and  usable.  By  that 
time  the  children  of  Montreal  had  been  robbed  of 
that  which  was  their  right.  And  Charles  Par- 
sons, in  New  York,  was  remarking  to  his  son,  that 
perhaps,  a  fleet  of  well-trained  elephants  would 
make  a  good  addition  to  a  wrecking  crew. 

Once  again  I  have  digressed.  Yet  offer  no 
apologies.  Parsons  did  not  let  the  wrecks  of  the 


184  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

White  Mountain  discourage  him  in  the  operation 
of  the  train.  On  the  contrary,  he  ordered  Mr. 
Britton  to  proceed  with  haste  to  the  complete  in- 
stallation of  the  air-brake — then  still  a  consider- 
able novelty — upon  every  corner  of  the  road.  He 
steadily  bettered  the  bridges  and  the  track,  tore 
out  the  old,  stub-switches  and  substituted  for  them 
the  newest,  split-switches,  with  signal  lights.  The 
White  Mountain  remained;  all  through  his  day, 
and  many  a  day  thereafter — even  though  in  the 
years  after  Mr.  Britton  and  he  were  gone  from  the 
road,  it  was  to  be  operated  between  Buffalo  and 
Syracuse  over  the  main  line  of  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral. And,  inasmuch  as  he  was  steadily  increas- 
ing his  affiliations  with  the  Ontario  &  Western,  he 
installed  in  connection  with  it  and  the  Wabash,  a 
through  train  from  Chicago  to  Weehawken  (oppo- 
site New  York) ;  going  over  the  rails  of  the  R.  W. 
&  0.  from  Suspension  Bridge  to  Oswego.  This 
train,  running  the  year  round,  and  also  put  at  a 
pretty  swift  schedule,  had  little  reputation  for  ad- 
hering to  it.  Upon  one  occasion  a  commercial 
traveler  bound  to  Charlotte  approaching  the  old 
station  at  "the  Bridge "  to  find  out  how  late  "the 
O.  &  W."  was  reported,  was  astounded  when  the 
agent  replied  "on  time."  Such  a  thing  had  not 
been  known  before  that  winter,  or  for  many  win- 
ters. And  the  fact  that  for  a  week  past  it  had 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  185 

stormed  almost  continuously,  only  compounded 
the  drummer's  perplexity. 

' l  How  is  it — on  time  I "  he  stammered. 

''This  is  yesterday's  train, "  was  the  prompt  re- 
sponse. " She's  just  twenty-four  hours  late." 

Eventually  and  in  the  close  campaign  for  rail- 
road economy  that  came  across  the  land  a  few 
years  ago,  this  train,  too,  was  sacrificed.  For  a 
time  the  experiment  was  tried  of  sending  its 
through  sleeping-car  over  the  main  line  of  the 
Central  from  Suspension  Bridge  to  Syracuse  on 
a  through  train ;  passing  it  on  from  the  latter  town 
to  the  Ontario  &  Western  by  way  of  the  old  Che- 
nango  Valley  branch  of  the  West  Shore.  The 
experiment  lingered  for  a  time  and  then  expired. 
It  is  not  likely  that  it  will  ever  be  renewed. 

By  1888  Parsons  had  begun  to  develop  a  very 
real  railroad,  indeed.  The  Borne,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh  once  again  was  a  power  in  the  land. 
It  had  ninety-one  locomotives,  ninety-one  passen- 
ger-cars, forty-eight  baggage,  mail  and  express 
cars,  and  2302  freight-cars,  of  one  type  or  another. 
Parsons,  as  its  President,  was  assisted  by  two 
Vice-Presidents,  Clarence  S.  Day,  and  his  son, 
Charles  Parsons,  Jr.  Mr.  Lawyer  still  remained 
Secretary  and  Treasurer  of  the  road,  even  though 
his  offices  had  been  moved  two  years  before  from 


186  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Water-town  to  New  York  City.  At  Watertown, 
the  veteran  local  agent,  R.  E.  Smiley,  remained  in 
charge  of  affairs,  with  the  title  of  Assistant  Secre- 
tary of  the  company.  And  Mr.  Britton  was,  of 
course,  still  its  General  Manager,  at  Oswego. 

He  was  really  a  tremendous  man,  Hiram  M. 
Britton,  in  appearance,  a  big  upstanding  citizen, 
red  of  beard  and  clear  of  eye.  I  have  not,  as  yet, 
given  anything  like  the  proper  amount  of  con- 
sideration to  his  dominating  personality.  He 
made  a  position  for  himself  in  North  Country  rail- 
roading that  would  fairly  entitle  him  to  a  whole 
chapter  in  a  book  such  as  this. 

Mr.  Britton  was  born  in  Concord,  Mass.,  No- 
vember 22,  1831.  At  that  time  that  little  town 
was  almost  at  the  height  of  its  high  fame  as  a 
literary  center.  As  a  boy  he  claimed  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson  as  a  friend.  The  influence  that 
Emerson  had  upon  Britton  remained  with  him  all 
the  years  of  his  life. 

At  seventeen,  owing  to  financial  reverses  that 
his  father  had  sustained,  young  Britton  was  com- 
pelled to  leave  school  and  go  to  work.  He  found 
a  job  on  the  old  Fitchburg  as  fireman;  from  that 
he  quickly  rose  to  be  engineer  and  then  Master 
Mechanic.  He  made  his  way  down  into  New  Jer- 
sey and  became  Superintendent  of  the  New  Jersey 
and  North  Eastern  Railway;  after  that  General 


HIRAM  M.  BRITTON 

The  First  General  Manager  of  the  Rome,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh  and  a  Railroad  Genius. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  187 

Manager  of  the  New  Jersey  Midland,  the  portion 
of  the  old  Oswego  Midland  to-day  embraced  by  a 
considerable  part  of  the  New  York,  Susquehanna 
&  Western.  .  .  .  From  that  last  post,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1883  to  the  management  of  the  Borne, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh.  That  position  he  re- 
tained until  1890,  when  increasing  ill-health  forced 
him  to  relinquish  it  and  travel  throughout  Europe 
in  a  vain  effort  to  regain  his  strength.  The  presi- 
dencies, both  of  the  Rome  road  and  of  one  of  the 
Pennsylvania  System  lines  were  offered  him.  He 
was  compelled  to  refuse  both.  His  strength 
gradually  failed,  and  in  1893  he  died. 

The  old  E.  W.  &  0.  was  compelled  in  its  day  and 
generation  to  assume  some  pretty  hard,  human 
handicaps.  But  Britton  was  a  mighty  asset  to  it. 
He  loved  his  work.  It  was  a  real  and  an  eternal 
delight  to  him  to  achieve  the  things  that  he  had  set 
out  to  do.  He  was  always  approachable,  obliging 
and  ready  to  meet  all  reasonable  requests  that 
came  within  his  power;  he  had  the  faculty  of  mak- 
ing friends  of  those  who  came  in  contact  with  him, 
and  of  retaining  their  friendship.  A  man's  man 
was  Hiram  M.  Britton,  a  railroad  captain  of  great 
alertness,  and  possessed  not  only  of  vast  enthu- 
siasm, but  also  of  a  wondrous  ability  for  hard 
work.  The  hard  problems  of  his  job  never  f  eazed 
him.  Even  the  winter  snows — forever  its  bete 


188  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

noire — did  not  discourage  him,  not  for  long,  at 
any  rate.  He  came,  as  came  so  many  men  from 
outside  the  borders  of  the  North  Country,  with 
something  like  a  contempt  for  its  midwinter 
storms.  Before  Britton  had  been  long  on  the  job, 
however,  the  line  from  Potsdam  to  Watertown 
was  completely  blocked  for  four  long  days,  and 
he  learned  that  it  was  all  in  a  day's  work  when 
the  ticking  wires  reported  two  engines  and  a 
plow  derailed  at  Pulaski,  two  more  off  at  Ka- 
soag,  and  not  a  train  in  or  out  of  Watertown 
for  more  than  thirty  hours.  At  all  of  which  he 
would  relight  his  pipe  and  send  a  few  telegrams 
of  real  encouragement  up  and  down  the  line. 
That  is,  he  sent  the  telegrams  when  the  wires  re- 
mained up  above  the  tops  of  the  snow-drifts  and 
the  men  were  using  them  to  hang  their  coats  upon 
as  they  shoveled  the  heavy  snow.  Ofttimes  the 
wires  went  down,  and  once  in  a  while  they  were 
deliberately  cut — by  some  harassed  and  nerve- 
racked,  snow-fighting  boss. 

That  was  before  the  days  of  the  famous  Dewey 
episode  at  Manila,  but  the  emergency  at  the  mo- 
ment must  have  seemed  quite  as  great.  At  any 
rate  the  Gordian  knot,  translated  into  a  thin 
thread  of  copper  wire,  was  cut — not  once,  but  fre- 
quently. I  myself,  in  later  years,  have  seen  a 
Superintendent  go  into  our  lower  yard  at  Water- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  189 

town  late  at  night  when  congestion  piled  upon 
congestion,  when  the  zero  wind  whistled  up 
through  the  flats  from  down  Sackett's  Harbor 
way,  and  the  evening  train  up  the  line  nestled 
somewhere  near  Massey  Street  crossing  in  a  hope- 
lessly inert  and  frozen  fashion,  and  clean  up  the 
mess  there.  Once  one  of  these  inbound  trains 
from  down  the  line  coming  down  the  long  grade 
into  the  yard  crashed  into  a  snowbound  freight 
there,  and  split  the  caboose  asunder,  as  clean  a 
job  as  if  it  had  been  done  with  a  sharp  ax.  There 
were  six  men  asleep  in  the  caboose — to  say  noth- 
ing of  two  in  the  cab  of  the  oncoming  train,  and 
yet  no  lives  were  lost.  Even  though  the  Water- 
town  Fire  Department  spent  most  of  the  rest  of 
the  night  putting  out  the  fearful  blaze  that  arose 
from  the  wreckage.  Corn  meal  was  spread  boun- 
tifully about  atop  of  the  snow,  and  no  one  on  the 
flats  lacked  for  pudding  the  rest  of  that  winter. 

Once,  in  the  Britton  regime,  there  had  been 
nearly  a  week  when  Watertown  was  entirely  cut 
off  from  Richland  and  the  towns  to  the  South  of 
it.  A  show-troupe,  marooned  at  that  junction  for 
seven  fearful  days,  had  rigged  up  a  theater  in  the 
old  depot  and  there  had  played  Ten  Nights  in  a 
Barroom,  in  order  to  pay  its  hotel  bill.  At  least 
so  runs  the  tradition. 


190  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

The  Eome  road  felt  that  it  owed  some  obliga- 
tion to  its  old,  chief  town  and  all  the  while  it  kept 
steadily  at  its  all  but  hopeless  task,  although  every 
night  the  fresh  wind  blowing  down  from  Canada 
and  across  the  icy  surface  of  Ontario  filled  the 
long  miles  of  railroad  cuts  and  completely  erased 
the  sight  of  the  rails.  Parsons  had  bought 
plows  for  the  road  such  as  it  had  never  seen 
before — huge  Eussells  and  giant  rotaries  that 
would  cut  the  snow  as  with  a  giant  gimlet,  and 
then  send  it  shooting  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off  over 
the  country,  so  that  it  would  not  blow  back  at  once 
into  the  cuttings.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  real 
technique  in  this  practical  science  of  fighting  snow 
— and  a  deal  of  variance  as  to  the  proper  tech- 
nique. For  instance,  in  the  Rome  road  they  used 
to  place  its  old-fashioned  "wing-plows"  ahead 
of  its  pushing  locomotives,  while  the  Black  River 
line  invariably  had  its  plows  follow  the  engine. 
It  claimed  for  itself  the  proof  of  the  pudding,  in 
the  fact  that  whereas  in  blizzard  weather  the 
Rome  road  almost  invariably  was  blocked,  the 
Black  River  line  rarely  was.  It  is  but  fair  to  add, 
however,  that  the  original  construction  of  the 
R.  W.  &  0.  north  of  Richland  was  very  bad  for 
snow-fighting;  there  were  many  miles  of  shallow 
cuttings  into  which  the  prevailing  winds  off  Lake 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  191 

Ontario  could  easily  pack  the  soft  wet  snow.  In 
after  years  and  under  New  York  Central  manage- 
ment this  primary  defect  was  corrected.  And  the 
large  expense  of  the  track  elevation  was  quite  off- 
set by  the  great  economies  in  snow-fighting  costs 
that  immediately  ensued. 

Yet  try  as  H.  M.  Britton  might  and  did  try  he 
seemed  fated  there  in  the  eighties  to  buck  against 
the  worst  storms  that  the  North  Country  had 
known  in  more  than  half  a  century.  That  same 
storm  that  tied  up  his  main  line  roundabout 
Richland — always  a  snow  trouble  center — com- 
pletely paralyzed  the  Cape  Vincent  branch.  It 
came  as  the  grand  finale  to  a  sequence  of  particu- 
larly severe  snowfalls  and  hard  blows.  The  defi- 
cit upon  the  Cape  Vincent  branch  that  winter — I 
think  it  was  the  spring  of  1887 — rose  to  an  ap- 
palling figure.  Finally  the  R.  W.  &  0.  gave  up 
the  Cape  branch  as  a  hopeless  proposition  and 
hired  a  liveryman  to  carry  the  mails  between 
Watertown  and  Cape  Vincent,  in  order  that  it 
might  not  violate  its  contract  with  the  Postoffice 
Department. 

After  the  branch  had  been  abandoned  a  full 
fortnight,  a  delegation  of  citizens  from  the  Cape 
drove  to  Watertown  and  there  confronted  Britton, 
who  had  made  an  appointment  to  meet  them. 


192  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

They  made  their  little  speeches  and  they  were 
pretty  hot  little  speeches — hot  enough  to  have 
melted  away  more  than  one  good-sized  drift. 

"When  are  you  going  to  cart  that  snow  off  our 
line?"  finally  demanded  the  spokesman  of  the 
Cape  Vincent  folk. 

Britton  looked  at  the  delegation  coolly,  and 
lighted  a  fresh  cigar. 

"I  am  going  to  let  the  man  that  put  it  there, " 
he  said  slowly, ' '  take  it  away. ' ' 

And  he  did.  It  was  thirty-two  days  before  a 
railroad  engine  entered  Cape  Vincent  from  the 
time  that  the  last  one  had  left  it. 

The  days  of  that  final  decade  of  the  Rome, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  were,  most  of  them, 
however,  good  days  indeed.  Fondly  do  the  men 
of  that  era,  getting,  alas,  fewer  each  year,  speak 
of  the  time  when  the  Borne  road  had  its  corporate 
identity  and,  what  meant  far  more  to  them,  a  cor- 
porate personality.  For  the  E.  W.  &  0.  did  have 
in  those  last  days  those  elusive  qualities,  that  even 
the  so-called  inanimate  corporation  can  sometimes 
have — a  heart  and  a  soul.  Yet,  in  every  case,  at- 
tributes such  as  these  must  come  from  above, 
from  the  men  in  real  charge  of  a  property.  The 
courtesy  of  the  ticket-agent,  the  friendliness  of  the 
conductor  are  the  reflection  of  the  courtesy  and 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  193 

the  friendliness  of  the  men  above  him.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  H.  M.  Britton  was  at  all  times 
both  courteous  and  friendly.  He  was  a  tremen- 
dous inspiration  to  the  men  with,  and  below  him. 

In  the  doleful  days  of  the  Sloan  administration 
the  E.  W.  &  0.  began  to  deteriorate  in  its  morale, 
with  a  tremendous  rapidity.  In  the  days  after 
the  coming  of  Parsons  and  of  Britton  it  began 
slowly,  but  very  surely,  to  regain  this  quality  so 
precious  and  so  essential  to  the  successful  opera- 
tion of  any  railroad.  The  property  began  to  pick 
up  amazingly.  At  first  it  was,  indeed,  a  heart- 
breaking task.  As  we  have  seen,  at  the  end  of  the 
Sloan  regime  little  but  a  shell  remained  of  a  once 
proud  and  prosperous  railroad.  The  road  needed 
ties  and  rails,  bridges,  shops,  power,  rolling-stock 
— everything.  More  than  these  even  it  needed  the 
future  confidence  of  its  employes.  It  needed  men 
with  ideas  and  men  with  vision.  From  its  new 
owners  gradually  came  all  of  these  things. 

Yet,  before  the  things  material,  came  the  things 
spiritual,  if  you  will  let  me  put  it  that  way.  Brit- 
ton gained  the  confidence  of  his  men.  He  played 
the  game  and  he  played  it  fairly.  And  no  one 
knows  better  when  it's  being  played  fairly  by 
the  big  bosses  at  headquarters,  than  does  your 
keen-witted  railroader  of  the  rank  and  file. 
Perhaps,  the  best  testimony  to  the  bigness  of 


194  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

H.  M.  Britton  came  not  long  ago,  from  one  of  the 
men  who  had  worked  under  him — a  veteran  engi- 
neer, to-day  retired  and  living  at  his  home  in  St. 
Lawrence  County. 

"We  didn't  get  much  money,  I'll  grant  you," 
says  this  man,  "but  somehow  we  didn't  seem  to 
need  much.  And  yet,  I  don't  know  but  what  we 
had  as  much  to  live  on  as  we  do  now.  But  that 
didn't  make  any  difference.  We  were  interested 
in  the  road  and  we  were  all  helping  to  put  it  in  the 
position  that  we  felt  it  ought  to  be  in.  In  those 
earliest  days,  you  know,  our  engines  used  to  have 
a  lot  of  brasswork.  We  used  to  spend  hours  over 
them,  keeping  them  in  shape,  polishing  them  and 
scrubbing  them.  And  when  we  had  no  polishing 
or  scrubbing  to  do,  we'd  go  down  to  the  yard  and 
just  sit  in  them.  They  belonged  to  us.  The  com- 
pany may  have  paid  for  them,  but  we  owned 
them." 

So  was  it.  "Charley"  Vogel  running  the  local 
freight  from  Watertown  to  Norwood,  down  one 
day  and  back  the  next,  in ' '  opposition  "  to  "  Than ' ' 
Peterson  used  to  boast  that  he  could  eat  his  lunch 
from  the  running-board  of  his  cleanly  engine; 
which  had  started  her  career  years  before  as  the 
Moses  Taylor,  No.  35.  Ed.  Geer,  his  fireman, 
was  as  hard  a  worker  as  the  skipper.  This  frame 
of  mind  was  characteristic  of  all  ranks  and  of  all 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  195 

classes.  Indeed,  the  company  may  have  paid  for 
the  road,  but  the  men  did  own  it.  And  they  owned 
it  in  a  sense  that  cannot  easily  be  understood  to- 
day— in  the  confusion  of  national  agreements  and 
decisions  by  the  Labor  Board  out  at  Chicago  and 
a  vast  and  pathetic  multiplicity  of  red-tape  be- 
tween the  railroad  worker  and  his  boss. 

Take  Ben  Batchelder :  We  saw  him  a  moment 
ago  with  John  0 'Sullivan  working  a  thirty-six 
hour  day  to  clean  up  a  circus  wreck  just  outside 
of  Potsdam.  That  was  Ben  Batchelder 's  way  al- 
ways. Incidentally,  it  was  just  one  of  his  days. 
One  time,  in  midwinter,  during  a  fortnight  of  con- 
stant and  heavy  snow,  when  Ben  had  become 
Master  Mechanic  at  Watertown,  the  Despatcher 
called  him  on  the  'phone  and  asked  for  a  locomo- 
tive to  operate  a  snow-plow.  Ben  replied  that 
all  the  locomotives  were  frozen  and  that  it  would 
be  slow  work  thawing  them  out,  and  making  them 
ready  for  service. 

"Then  why  don't  you  take  them  into  the  house 
and  thaw  them  out?"  shouted  the  Despatcher. 

"There's  no  roof  on  the  house,  and  I'm  too 
busy  to-day  to  put  one  on,"  was  the  quick  retort. 

Faith  and  loyalty — we  did  not  call  it  morale  in 
those  days,  but  it  was,  just  the  same.  Here  was 
Conductor  William  Schram  with  a  brisk  little  job, 
handling  the  way  freight  on  the  old  Cape  branch : 


196  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

He  had  just  spent  three  days  bringing  a  big  Rus- 
sell  plow  through  from  the  Cape  to  Watertown. 
On  getting  into  Watertown  it  was  needed  to  open 
up  the  road  between  that  city  and  Philadelphia, 
Schram  had  been  on  duty  three  days  without  rest. 
Another  conductor  was  called  to  relieve  him. 
William  Schram  protested.  He  said  that  he  did 
not  feel  that  he  could  desert  the  road  when  it  was 
in  a  fix. 

Three  other  conductors,  well  famed  in  the  days 
of  the  Parsons'  regime  of  the  Rome  road,  were 
Andrew  Dixon,  Tom  Cooper  and  Daniel  Eggleston 
— and  a  fourth  was  the  well-known  Jacob  Her- 
man, of  Watertown.  Jake  was  a  warm  personal 
friend  of  both  Parsons  and  Britton.  Finally,  it 
came  to  a  point  where  the  President  would  have 
no  other  man  in  charge  of  his  train  when  he  made 
his  inspection  trips  over  the  property,  and  he  ad- 
vanced and  protected  him  in  every  conceivable 
way.  He  insisted  even  upon  Jake  accompanying 
him  back  and  forth  from  New  York  on  the  oc- 
casion of  his  frequent  visits  into  the  North 
Country. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  I  referred  to  the  easy  tra- 
ditions of  the  long-agos  in  regard  to  the  passenger 
receipts  from  the  average  American  railroad. 
The  E.  W.  &  0.  had  been  no  exception  to  this  gen- 
eral rule.  Along  about  1888  or  1889  Parsons  de- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  197 

cided  that  he  would  make  it  an  exception  hence- 
forth. He  violated  the  old  traditions  and  sent 
"spotters"  out  upon  the  passenger  trains.  As  a 
direct  result  of  their  observations  some  thirteen 
or  fourteen  of  the  oldest  men  on  the  line  were 
dropped  from  its  service.  Not  only  this,  but  sev- 
eral months '  pay  was  withheld  from  the  envelopes 
of  each  of  them  as  they  were  discharged.  Just 
prior  to  this  volcano-like  eruption  on  the  part  of 
"the  old  man"  Parsons  sent  Herman  up  to  Water- 
town  as  station  master — a  position  which  he  has 
continued  to  hold  until  comparatively  recent 
months. 

The  "stove  committees"  "joshed"  Jake  pretty 
well  over  his  boss 's  strategy,  knowing  full  well  all 
the  while,  that  if  there  was  one  honest  conductor 
on  the  whole  line,  it  was  that  selfsame  Jacob  Her- 
man. Not  only  honest,  but  courageous.  It  was 
in  a  slightly  earlier  era  that  the  road  had  a  good 
deal  of  trouble  on  the  Eome  branch  with  what  they 
called  "bark  peelers" — woodsmen,  who  would 
come  down  out  of  the  forest  and  in  their  boister- 
ous fashion  make  a  deal  of  trouble  for  the  train- 
crew. 

Jake  Herman  was  told  off  to  end  that  nuisance. 
It  was  a  regular  honest-to-goodness-carry-the-mes- 
sage-to-Garcia  sort  of  a  job.  Well,  Jake  got  the 
message  through  to  Garcia.  He  picked  out  six 


198  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

brakemen  as  assistant  messengers,  any  one  of 
whom  would  have  made  a  real  Cornell  center-rush. 
They  were  the  "flower  of  the  flock. " 

At  Richland  the  gang  boarded  the  evening  train 
down  from  Watertown.  Somewhere  between  that 
station  and  Kasoag  they  detrained — as  a  military 
man  might  put  it.  But  not  in  a  military  fashion. 
Along  the  right-of-way  Captain  Jake  and  his  lieu- 
tenants distributed  "  bark-peelers, M  with  a  fair 
degree  of  regularity  of  interval.  Up  to  that  time 
it  had  been  no  sinecure,  being  a  conductor  or  a 
trainman  on  the  old  Eome  road.  After  that  it  be- 
came as  easy  as  running  an  infant  class  in  a  Sun- 
day School. 

John  D.  Tapley  was  another  well  known  conduc- 
tor of  those  days,  and  so  was  W.  S.  Hammond, 
who  afterwards  became  division  superintendent 
at  Carthage.  These  men  were  U.  &  B.  R.  gradu- 
ates, and  it  was  but  logical  that  when  Hammond 
came  to  his  promotion  reward,  it  should  be  upon 
the  corner  of  the  property  on  which  he  had  been 
schooled  and  with  which  he  was  most  familiar. 
He  was  a  man  of  tremendous  popularity  among 
his  men. 

Sometimes  these  men  of  the  rank  and  file  had 
their  reward.  More  often  they  did  not.  John 
0 'Sullivan's  came  when  in  1890,  after  a  few  years 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  199 

of  unsuccessful  experimentation,  General  Pas- 
senger Agent  Butterfield  handed  him  the  annual 
Northern  New  York  Sunday  excursion  to  Ontario 
Beach  (in  the  outskirts  of  Rochester)  and  asked 
him  what  he  could  do  with  it.  0 'Sullivan  replied 
that  he  could  make  it  go.  He  had  watched  the 
success  of  the  road's  annual  long-distance  excur- 
sions; to  Washington  in  the  spring  and  to  New 
York  in  October — this  last  for  a  fixed  fare  of  six 
dollars,  for  a  six  or  seven  hundred  mile  journey. 
The  excursions  ran  coaches,  parlor-cars,  dining- 
cars  and  sleeping-cars,  and  did  a  land-office  busi- 
ness. -Northern  New  York  had  acquired  a  taste 
for  railroad  travel.  0 'Sullivan  knew  this. 

"I'll  take  you  on,"  said  he  to  Mr.  Butterfield. 

And  so  he  did.  For  seventeen  successive  years 
thereafter  he  handled  the  annual  Ontario  Beach 
excursion  from  Potsdam  and  all  its  adjoining  sta- 
tions— all  the  way  from  Norwood  to  Watertown 
— on  a  one-day  trip  over  some  four  hundred  miles 
of  single-track  railroad.  The  excursion  had  a 
vast  business — invariably  running  in  several  sec- 
tions, each  drawn  by  two  locomotives,  and  hav- 
ing from  fifteen  to  sixteen  cars  each.  It  carried 
passengers  for  $2.50  for  the  round  trip.  Few 
Northern  New  York  folk  along  the  road  went  to 
bed  until  it  returned,  which  was  always  well  into 
the  wee  small  hours  of  Monday  morning.  And 


200  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

yet,  it  was  withal,  a  reasonably  orderly  crowd. 
O 'Sullivan  kept  it  so.  On  the  handbills  which  an- 
nounced it  each  year  appeared  these  conspicuous 
words : 

"Behave  yourself.  If  you  can't  behave  your- 
self, don't  go." 

Yet  a  practical  reward  such  as  this  could  in 
truth  be  handed  to  but  a  very  few  of  the  road's 
workers  indeed.  Yet  it  continued  until  the  end  to 
command  their  loyalty.  Not  even  the  cruel  han- 
dling of  the  property  by  the  predecessors  of  Par- 
sons could  dampen  that  loyalty.  To  even  attempt 
to  make  a  list  of  the  hard-working  and  energetic 
workers  of  that  day  and  generation  of  the  eighties 
would  mean  a  catalogue  far  larger  than  this  little 
book.  There  comes  to  mind  a  brilliant  list — 
names  some  of  them  to-day  still  with  us,  and 
some  of  them  but  affectionate  traditions :  George 
Snell,  who  began  by  running  the  Doxtater;  Patsy 
Tobin,  who  had  the  old  Gardner  Colby  on  the  day 
that  she  exploded  on  Harrison  Hill,  just  outside 
of  Canton;  Ed.  McNiff;  William  Bavis;  Butler 
(who  had  started  his  career  toward  an  engine-cab 
as  blacksmith  at  DeKalb  Junction,  trimming  for 
relaying  the  old  iron  rails  that  the  section-gangs 
brought  to  him) ;  and  Superintendent  W.  S. 
(Billy)  Jones. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  201 

Jones  was  a  much-loved  officer  of  the  old  E.  W. 
&  0.  He  started  his  railroad  career  at  Sandy 
Creek,  as  an  operator,  receiving  his  messages  with 
one  of  the  old-fashioned  printing-telegraphs. 
One  day  Eichard  Holden,  of  Watertown,  dropped 
into  the  Sandy  Creek  depot  and  suggested  to 
Jones  that  he  throw  the  old  contraption  out  of 
the  window — it  was  forever  getting  out  of  order. 
Jones  demurred  for  a  time ;  then  accepted  the  sug- 
gestion. And  in  a  few  weeks  was  one  of  the  best 
operators  on  the  line,  which  led  presently  to  his 
appointment  as  agent  at  Ogdensburgh,  where  he 
remained  until  the  days  of  the  Parsons  '  control. 

Both  Britton  and  Parsons  were  constantly  on 
the  alert  to  discover  the  best  available  material 
on  their  property  and  Jones  was  appointed  in  the 
mid-eighties  to  be  superintendent  of  the  line 
east  of  Watertown,  with  headquarters  at  DeKalb. 
Later  he  was  moved  to  Watertown  and  there  be- 
came one  of  the  fixtures  of  the  town. 

I  cannot  close  this  chapter  of  the  second  golden 
age  of  the  Eome  road  without  a  passing  reference 
to  George  H.  Haselton,  who  died  but  a  year  or  two 
ago.  Mr.  Haselton  was  the  successor  of  Griggs 
of  Jackson  and  of  Close,  becoming  Master  Me- 
chanic of  the  road  in  1878,  or  at  about  the  time 
its  shops  were  moved  from  Eome  to  Oswego.  He 


202  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

builded  in  the  latter  city  the  engines  that  were  the 
precursors  of  the  mighty  power  of  to-day.  He 
used  great  facility  in  building  and  rebuilding  the 
early  locomotives  of  the  E.  W.  &  0. — in  keeping 
them  in  service,  seemingly  forever  and  a  day.  In 
the  North  Countiy  a  locomotive  goes  in  for  long 
service  and,  in  its  difficult  climate,  hard  service, 
too.  There  still  is,  or  was  until  very  recently  at 
least,  a  locomotive  in  service  at  the  plant  of  the 
Hannawa  Pulp  Company  at  Potsdam,  which  al- 
though ordered  by  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad 
from  the  Taunton  Locomotive  Works  was  de- 
livered to  the  Central  Vermont  in  May,  1869. 
First  named  the  St.  Albans  and  then  the  Shel- 
bourne,  she  was  inherited  by  the  Rutland  Rail- 
road and  then,  after  many  rebuildings  turned  over 
by  its  Ogdensburgh  branch  (the  former  Northern 
Railroad)  to  the  Norwood  &  St.  Lawrence  Rail- 
road. Fifty  years  of  service  through  a  stern 
northland  seemed  to  work  little  damage  to  this 
staunch  old  settler.  She  was  typical  of  her  kind 
— old-fashioned  built,  and  with  old-fashioned 
standards  of  the  service  to  be  rendered. 


CHAPTER  X 

IN  WHICH  RAILROADS  MULTIPLY 

HE  all  but  defunct  Rome,  Watertown  &  Og- 
-••  densburgh,  of  1880,  was  not  a  property  to 
attract  any  considerable  amount  of  attention  from 
the  financiers  and  big  railroaders,  who  had  lo- 
cated themselves  in  the  city  of  New  York.  A 
local  and  feeding  line  of  but  some  four  hundred 
miles  of  trackage — and  most  of  that  in  an  utterly 
wretched  and  deplorable  condition — it  commanded 
neither  the  attention  nor  the  respect  of  the  me- 
tropolis. The  Vanderbilts  in  their  comfortable 
offices  in  the  still-new  Grand  Central  Depot, 
snapped  their  fingers  contemptuously  at  it.  They 
would  have  but  little  of  it.  They  did  not  need  it. 
It  fed  their  prosperous  main  line  anyway.  As  we 
have  already  seen,  William  H.  Vanderbilt  had  at 
one  time  acquired  a  considerable  interest  in  the 
Utica  &  Black  River  Railroad.  Twice  he  had  ac- 
tually moved  toward  securing  control  of  that  snug 
little  property.  It  seemed  to  be  a  far  more  logi- 
cal feeder  to  the  New  York  Central  than  the  Rome 

203 


204  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

road  might  ever  become.  Yet,  eventually  Mr. 
Vanderbilt  sold  his  Black  Eiver  stock. 

"I  am  not  going  to  dissipate  my  energies  in 
sundries/'  he  then  told  one  of  his  cronies.  "I 
am  going  to  stick  by  the  main  line  hereafter. " 

As  I  have  already  intimated  if  he  had  succeeded 
in  acquiring  the  Utica  &  Black  River,  there  at  the 
beginning  of  the  eighties  the  entire  railroad  his- 
tory of  the  North  Country  might  have  been 
changed,  down  to  this  very  day.  It  was  in  that 
uncertain  hour  that  the  elaborate  but  ill-fated 
West  Shore  was  being  builded  through  from  New 
York  to  Buffalo — a  route  ten  miles  shorter  than 
the  main  line  of  the  New  York  Central.  The 
West  Shore  needed  feeders,  very  greatly  needed 
them,  and  it  was  having  a  hard  time  getting  them. 
Remember  too,  if  you  will,  that  if  the  Utica  & 
Black  River  had  become  the  sole  Northern  New 
York  feeding  line  of  the  New  York  Central,  it  is 
entirely  probable  and  consistent  that  the  Rome, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  would  have  been  an 
extremely  valuable  and  essential  factor  of  the 
West  Shore.  The  greater  part  of  the  state  of 
New  York  would  then  have  been  placed  upon  a 
competitive  railroad  basis.  Instead  of  being,  as 
it  is  to-day,  largely  upon  the  monopolistic  basis. 

The  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  of  1890 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  205 

was  an  extremely  different  railroad  from  the  woe- 
begone and  utterly  wretched  property  that  had 
borne  that  name  but  a  decade  earlier.  Reorgan- 
ized, to  a  large  extent  rebuilded,  it  was  a  rein- 
carnation of  the  excellent  rail  highway  which  the 
citizens  of  Watertown  and  other  communities  of 
the  North  Country  had  built  for  themselves  away 
back  there  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifties.  Charles 
Parsons  was  never  a  popular  figure  in  Northern 
New  York.  He  made  no  efforts  toward  popu- 
larity. Yet  simple  justice  compels  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  fact,  that  in  the  rebuilding  of  the 
E.  W.  &  0.  he  accomplished  a  very  large  construc- 
tive work.  He  had  relaid  and  reballasted  hun- 
dreds of  miles  of  main  line  track  and  put  down 
not  only  many  miles  of  sidings  but  also  a  con- 
siderable quantity  of  new  main  line ;  between  Nor- 
wood and  Massena  Springs,  between  Oswego  and 
Syracuse,  between  Windsor  Beach  and  Rochester, 
chief  among  these  extensions.  He  had  built  new 
bridges  by  the  dozens;  purchased  and  rebuilded 
cars  and  locomotives  by  the  hundreds.  It  was  al- 
most as  if  he  had  built  a  brand  new  railroad. 

Now — in  1890 — he  had  643  main  line  miles  of  as 
good  a  railroad,  generally  speaking,  as  one  might 
find  in  the  entire  land.  The  Borne  road  owned  an 
even  hundred  locomotives,  ninety-eight  passenger- 
cars,  thirty-five  baggage-cars,  and  2609  freight- 


206  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

cars  of  one  type  or  another.  It  was  a  monopoly 
within  its  territory.  Its  busy  main-stem  stretched 
all  the  way  from  Suspension  Bridge  (with  ex- 
cellent western  connections)  to  Norwood  and 
Massena  Springs  (each  with  excellent  eastern 
connections).  It  was  in  a  superb  strategic  posi- 
tion as  a  competitor  for  through  freight  from  the 
interior  of  the  land  to  the  Atlantic  seaboard  ports 
— either  Boston,  or  Portland,  or  Montreal.  Par- 
sons was  unusually  expert  in  his  traffic  strategy. 
Frequently  he  went  so  far  and  dared  so  much  that 
the  line  of  the  four-leaved  clover  gradually  be- 
came something  of  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  some  of 
its  larger  competitors.  Parsons  in  competitive 
territory  was  a  rate-smasher.  He  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  put  the  screws  upon  the  territory  wherein 
his  road  was  a  purely  monopolistic  carrier.  There 
are  citizens  dwelling  in  the  northern  portions  of 
Jefferson  county  who  still  remember — and  with 
bitterness  in  their  memories — how  he  helped  put 
the  Keene  mines  out  of  business. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  of  this  book  I  referred  to 
the  large  part  that  James  Sterling  had  played 
in  the  upbuilding  of  this  iron  industry.  After 
several  successive  failures  the  mines  had,  some- 
time in  the  seventies,  been  put  upon  a  basis,  seem- 
ingly permanent.  Their  ore  was  good — and  pop- 
ular. At  the  time  that  Parsons  first  assumed  con- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  207 

trol  of  the  Rome  road,  the  Keene  mines  were  ship- 
ping out  from  six  to  eight  carloads  of  hematite 
daily — to  connecting  lines  at  Syracuse,  at  Sterling 
and  at  Charlotte — at  an  average  rate  of  $1.25  a 
ton.  Parsons  advanced  the  rate  to  $1.50  a  ton, 
and  they  quit.  They  have  remained  idle  ever 
since;  their  abandoned  shaft-houses  melancholy 
reminders  of  a  vanished  enterprise.  Yet  the  ore 
is  still  there,  in  vast  quantities;  richer  than  the 
Messaba  and  in  the  opinion  of  many  experts,  ex- 
tending up  to  and  under  the  St.  Lawrence,  and 

into  the  province  of  Ontario. 

•          •••••• 

Oddly  enough,  as  Keene  quit  other  mine  dis- 
tricts of  Northern  New  York  began  to  open  up. 
It  had  been  known  for  many  years  that  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  small  village  of  Harrisville  in 
the  north  part  of  Lewis  county  there  were  valu- 
able deposits  of  black,  magnetic  iron  ore.  To 
reach  these  beds,  to  open  and  to  develop  them  had 
long  been  the  dream  of  certain  North  Country 
men,  notably  George  Gilbert,  of  Carthage  and 
Joseph  Pahud,  of  Harrisville.  As  far  back  as 
1866,  a  line  had  been  surveyed  from  Carthage  to 
Harrisville,  twenty-one  miles.  Yet,  it  was  not  un- 
til twenty  years  later  that  a  standard  railroad  was 
put  down  between  these  two  villages. 

In  the  meantime — to  be  exact,  in  the  summer  of 


208  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

1869 — the  so-called  "wooden  railroad "  was  built 
for  the  ten  miles  between  Carthage  and  Natural 
Bridge.  Literally  this  line — its  corporate  name 
was  the  Black  River  &  St.  Lawrence  Railway  Com- 
pany— had  rails  hewn  and  smoothed  from  maple. 
It  was  so  very  crude  that  it  was  doomed  to  failure 
from  the  beginning.  Yet  its  right-of-way  served 
a  similar  purpose  for  the  Carthage  &  Adirondack 
Railroad  which  was  organized  in  1883,  and  which 
opened  its  line  through  to  Jayville,  thirty  miles 
distant  three  years  later ;  and  on  to  Bensons  Mines 
in  the  fall  of  1889.  A  little  later  it  was  completed 
to  Newton  Falls,  its  present  terminus. 

One  other  small  railroad  was  built  out  from 
Carthage  a  few  years  later.  It  deserves  at  least 
a  paragraph  of  reference.  The  quiet  old-fash- 
ioned North  Country  village  of  Copenhagen,  situ- 
ated upon  the  historic  State  Road  from  Utica  to 
Sackett's  Harbor,  between  Lowville  and  Water- 
town,  had  not  ceased  to  regret  how  the  building 
of  the  Black  River  road — which  quite  naturally 
had  followed  the  water-level  of  the  river  valley — 
had  completely  passed  it  by.  Copenhagen  also 
wanted  a  railroad.  It  waited  for  forty  years 
after  the  completion  of  the  Utica  &  Black  River 
before  its  desire  was  fulfilled.  Then,  by  almost 
superhuman  effort  on  the  part  of  its  citizens,  as 
well  as  those  of  Carthage,  it  built  its  railroad  to 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  209 

that  village,  eleven  miles  distant.  A  former  citi- 
zen of  the  town,  one  Jimmy  March,  who  had  won 
fame  and  success  as  a  contractor  in  New  York 
City,  bought  a  second-hand  passenger-coach  from 
the  Erie  Railroad  and  presented  it  to  the  Carth- 
age &  Copenhagen.  A  locomotive  was  purchased 
with  a  few  work-cars  and  a  brave  but  almost  hope- 
less transportation  effort  begun. 

The  Carthage  &  Copenhagen  already  has  ceased 
to  exist.  The  recent  development  of  the  state 
highways  and  with  them,  of  the  motor-truck  and 
the  motor  omnibus  sealed  its  fate.  In  1917  it  was 
abandoned  and  its  track  torn  up,  for  its  wartime 
value  in  scrap  iron:  Its  little  yellow  depot  at 
Copenhagen  still  stands.  And  upon  it,  but  two 
or  three  years  ago,  there  still  was  affixed  the  blue 
and  white  signs  of  the  telegraph  company  and  the 
express  company.  Yet  no  longer  a  track  led  to 
it;  only  a  half -hidden  and  weed-grown  row  of 
rotting  ties,  stretching  away  off  in  the  distance 
toward  Carthage.  In  truth  it  has  become  but  a 
mere  mockery  of  a  railroad  depot. 

The  day  of  the  small  railroad  apparently  is 
gone;  its  fate  sealed.  True  it  is  that  the  little 
railroad  from  Norwood  to  Waddington  and  the 
one  that  the  Lewis  family  built  from  Lowville  to 
Croghan  and  Beaver  Falls  are  both  still  in  opera- 
tion, but  these  have  large  local  industries  to  serve 


210  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

— they  are,  in  fact,  hardly  more  than  indepen- 
dently operating  industrial  sidings.  So,  too,  has 
continued  the  branch  road  from  Gouverneur  to 
Edwards,  which  Engineer  Bockus  helped  open  in 
1893  and  upon  which  he  has  run  ever  since. 

Charles  Parsons  had  but  little  use  for  the  small 
railroad.  He  thought  of  railroads  in  large  units 
indeed.  His  thought  of  the  Rome,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh  was,  forever  and  a  day,  as  a  trunk- 
line,  nothing  less.  Sometimes  he  talked,  rather 
airily  to  be  sure,  of  buying  the  Ogdensburgh  & 
Lake  Champlain  or  even  the  Wabash.  Yet,  in 
reality,  he  would  have  had  nothing  of  either  of 
these  somewhat  moribund  properties.  He  did 
not  need  them.  They  were  not  germane  to  a 
single  one  of  his  plans.  For  one,  and  the  most 
important  thing,  neither  of  them  could  stand 
alone.  The  E.  W.  &  0.  could.  In  the  largest 
sense,  it  was  a  self-contained  property;  with  its 
monopolistic  control  of  a  huge  territory,  rich  in 
basic  wealth  and  still  in  a  period  of  healthy  and 
continued  growth. 

Once,  there  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineties, 
Grand  Trunk  made  tentative  offers  for  the  con- 
trol of  the  rebuilded  property.  It  hinted  at  a 
willingness  to  pay  par  for  such  an  interest.  Par- 
sons paid  no  attention  to  the  offer.  Some  people 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  211 

said  that  he  was  waiting  for  the  Canadian  Pacific 
to  come  along  and  buy  his  road;  there  have  al- 
ways been  plans  for  international  bridges  across 
the  St.  Lawrence ;  all  the  way  from  Cape  Vincent 
to  Morristown. 

But  even  Canadian  Pacific  was  not  the  big  thing 
in  Parsons'  mind.  I  think  it  may  be  safely  said 
that  from  the  middle  of  the  eighties  he  had  real- 
ized the  necessity  that  would  yet  confront  the 
Vanderbilts  of  owning  the  Rome,  Watertown  & 
Ogdensburgh.  At  that  earlier  time  they  were 
having  their  hands  full  with  the  aftermath  of  their 
victorious  but  terribly  costly  battle  with  the  West 
Shore.  It  would  be  some  years  before  they  would 
be  in  a  position  to  go  further  afield  than  their  own 
main  line  territory.  But  Parsons  could  wait — 
wait  and  upbuild  his  property.  And  show  his 
constant  independence  of  the  New  York  Central. 

In  a  hundred  different  ways  he  showed  this. 
More  than  ever  he  became  a  thorn  in  the  side  of 
the  bigger  road.  He  slashed  more  through  rates 
— and  raised  more  of  the  local  ones  to  make  good 
the  loss  to  his  treasury.  Northern  New  York 
groaned,  and  yet  was  helpless.  Parsons  laughed 
at  it.  As  far  as  possible  he  kept  out  of  it.  He 
cut  the  wires.  His  right-hand  man,  Hiram  M. 
Britton,  began  breaking  physically  under  the  pres- 
sure and  the  criticism,  finally  was  forced  to  leave 


212  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

his  desk  altogether  to  seek,  vainly,  the  restoration 
of  his  health  in  Europe. 

Mr.  E.  S.  Bowen  succeeded  Mr.  Britton  as  Gen- 
eral Manager  of  the  road.  A  quiet,  gentle  sort  of 
a  man — a  native  of  Lock  Haven,  Pa.,  and  a  former 
General  Superintendent  of  the  Erie — of  far  less 
dominant  personality  than  his  predecessor.  He 
came  quite  too  late  upon  the  property  to  make  a 
large  personal  impress  upon  it.  The  memories 
that  he  left  of  himself  are  mostly  negative.  He 
was  thorough,  conscientious,  apparently  seeking 
to  please,  in  an  all  but  impossible  situation.  He 
was  the  last  General  Manager  of  the  Borne, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  Railroad. 

The  steadily  increasing  clamor  of  the  North 
Country  against  the  road  and  its  management 
brought  a  man  up  from  the  South  with  a  definite 
scheme  for  building  a  competitive  relief  line  into 
it.  His  name  was  Austin  Corbin,  and  while  pri- 
marily he  was  always  promoter  rather  than  rail- 
roader, he  did  have  one  or  two  railroad  successes 
distinctly  to  his  credit.  In  control  of  the  Long 
Island,  his  had  been  the  vision  that  planned  the 
creation  of  a  great  ocean  terminal  at  Fort  Pond 
Bay,  near  Montauk  Point.  From  here  Corbin 
saw  four-day  steamers  plying  that  would  connect 
America  and  Europe.  A  day  would  be  saved  in 


and  Ogdensburglfi  Railroad  213 

not  bringing  these  fast  super-craft  in  and  out  of 
the  crowded  harbor  of  New  York.  It  was  a  fas- 
cinating plan  and  one  which  still  is  revived  every 
few  years. 

Corbin  did  some  distinctly  creative  work  upon 
the  Long  Island;  and  yet  forever  was  promoter, 
rather  than  railroader.  He  had  associated  with 
himself,  A.  A.  McLeod,  who  a  little  later  was  to 
achieve  a  spectacular  notoriety  by  successfully 
uniting — for  a  short  time — such  conservative 
properties  as  Eeading,  Lehigh  Valley  and  Boston 
&  Maine  into  a  single,  sprawling,  top-heavy  rail- 
road. Together  these  men  had  picked  up  for  a 
song  an  unhappy  railroad,  which  stretched  more 
than  halfway  across  New  York  State  and  which 
was  known  as  the  Utica,  Ithaca  &  Elmira.  Cor- 
bin acquired  this  road  in  1882.  It  was  a  wonder. 
It  reached  neither  Utica  nor  Ithaca  nor  Elmira. 
Starting  at  Horseheads,  four  or  five  miles  north 
of  Elmira,  it  twisted  and  turned  itself  through 
the  hills  of  the  Southern  Tier  and  of  Central  New 
York,  narrowly  missing  Ithaca — which  steadily 
and  consistently  refused  to  build  itself  up  the  hill 
to  meet  it — threading  Cortland  and  finally  ter- 
minating at  Canastota. 

This  road  came  almost  as  a  gift  to  Corbin  and 
his  associates.  Its  sole  value  was  that  in  its  brief 
course  it  intersected  nearly  all  of  the  important 


214  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

railroads  in  New  York  state;  the  Pennsylvania, 
Erie,  Lehigh  Valley,  Lackawanna,  and  the  New 
York  Central.  Corbin  renamed  the  road,  Elmira, 
Cortland  &  Northern,  and  in  1887,  extended  it 
north  from  Canastota  to  Camden,  intersecting  the 
Ontario  &  Western  and  the  Eome  road.  He  was 
then  within  about  fifty  miles  of  Watertown.  At 
about  the  same  time  he  gave  his  property  its  own 
entrance  well  within  the  heart  of  Elmira. 

Vainly  Corbin  tried  to  peddle  this  road  either 
to  the  Pennsylvania  or  to  the  Vanderbilts.  He 
finally  offered  it  to  them  at  the  assumption  of  its 
mortgage-bonds  and  its  fixed  charges.  Even  then 
it  fell  dead.  As  a  last  resource  he  determined 
upon  Watertown.  Word  of  that  small  but  grow- 
ing city's  traffic  plight  had  come  to  him.  He 
jumped  aboard  a  train  and  went  up  to  the  rich 
county-seat  of  Jefferson,  cultivated  the  friendship 
of  its  men  of  affairs.  Alluringly  he  spoke  to  them 
of  the  road  he  owned,  of  its  rare  connections,  its 
peculiar  value  as  a  coal-carrier,  his  ambition  to 
thrust  it  still  further  across  the  state. 

So  there  was  formed,  in  May,  1890,  the  Camden, 
Watertown  &  Northern  Railroad  to  fill  at  least 
the  fifty  mile  gap  between  Camden,  which  was 
nothing  as  a  railroad  terminus,  and  Watertown, 
which  even  then  had  a  heavy  originating  traffic. 
Watertown  even  in  1890,  was  employing  2500 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  215 

workers  in  its  factories  which  alone  burned  more 
than  33,000  tons  of  coal  annually.  It  was  receiv- 
ing 68,000  tons  of  freight  a  year  and  sending  out 
about  178,000.  It  was  a  fair  fling  under  any  con- 
ditions for  a  competing  railroad ;  under  the  pecu- 
liar conditions  that  then  prevailed  seemingly  a 
double  opportunity. 

Corbin,  himself,  became  President  of  the  Cam- 
den,  Watertown  &  Northern.  As  its  Secretary 
and  Treasurer,  James  L.  Newton  was  chosen. 
Around  these  men  a  most  representative  direc- 
torate was  grouped;  S.  F.  Bagg,  B.  B.  Taggart, 
H.  F.  Inglehart,  George  W.  Knowlton,  George  A. 
Bagley  and  A.  D.  Remington.  Whatever  might 
have  been  Corbin  Js  motive  in  the  entire  undertak- 
ing, there  was  no  mistaking  the  motives  of  the 
Watertown  men,  who  had  gathered  about  him. 
They  were  determined  to  give  their  town  a  com- 
peting line;  to  undo,  if  possible,  the  fiasco  of  a 
few  years  before  when  the  Carthage,  Watertown 
&  Sackett's  Harbor  had  passed  from  their  hands 
to  hands  unfriendly  and  alien. 

All  these  preparations  Parsons  watched  with 
a  great  equanimity.  He  realized  the  potential 
weaknesses  of  the  connecting  link  of  the  proposed 
new  line ;  the  terrific  curves  and  the  heavy  grades 
of  the  E.  C.  &  N.  Perhaps,  he  realized  these 


216  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

fundamental  weaknesses  all  the  more  because  of 
the  steadily  growing  alliance  between  his  road  and 
the  Ontario  &  Western.  The  R.  W.  &  0.  sought 
to  dig  more  deeply  than  ever  into  the  sides  of  the 
Vanderbilts  by  taking  more  and  more  traffic  away 
from  them;  in  the  five  years  from  1885  to  1890, 
the  business  delivered  by  the  Rome  road  to  the 
New  York  Central  at  Utica,  at  Eome  and  at  Syra- 
cuse had  dwindled  from  two  million  dollars  a  year 
to  a  little  less  than  a  million,  and  that  of  the  On- 
tario &  Western  had  practically  doubled. 

The  Vanderbilts  have  never  taken  punishment 
easily.  But  they  are  good  waiters.  And  appar- 
ently they  did  not  propose  in  this  instance  to  be 
hurried  into  reprisals.  William  H.  Vanderbilt 
hated  to  do  business  with  Charles  Parsons.  He 
detested  going  down  to  the  Eome  road's  offices  in 
Wall  Street,  and  there  facing  his  new  rival,  a  tall, 
cadaverous  man,  whose  hair  in  his  Home  road 
years  had  changed  from  part- white  to  snow-white, 
and  who  persisted  in  an  inordinate  habit  of  sitting 
at  his  desk  in  his  stocking  feet;  sometimes 
Parsons  flaunted  his  feet  upon  the  radiator.  If 
the  pedal  extremities  of  the  fastidious  Vanderbilt 
ever  hurt  him,  he  succeeded  at  least  in  keeping  his 
shoes  on.  Decency  compels  many  things. 

Across  from  Parsons  sat  his  son,  another 
Charles,  who  held  the  post  of  Vice-President  of 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  217 

the  road  of  which  his  father  was  President.  To- 
gether they  smoked  cigarettes,  incessantly.  It 
was  not  usual  for  elderly  men  in  those  days  to 
smoke  cigarettes  and  because  the  elder  Parsons 
did  it  in  his  office,  Mr.  Vanderbilt  distrusted  him 
all  the  more. 

And  yet,  there  were  about  Parsons  certain  dis- 
tinct qualities  of  charm  and  interest.  A  State  of 
Maine  man — he  came  from  Kennebunkport — he 
was  a  born  horse-trader,  as  his  operations  in 
the  Eome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  steadily 
showed.  He  was  not  a  man  to  pay  for  that  which 
he  might  possibly  get  for  nothing.  On  one  memo- 
rable  occasion  he  came  to  the  office  of  William 
Buchanan,  the  veteran  Motive  Power  Superin- 
tendent of  the  New  York  Central,  who  designed 
and  built  the  famous  No.  999,  in  order  to  get  some 
free  advice  on  locomotive  equipment.  The  Borne 
road  then  had  a  rather  fair  supply  of  antiquated 
motive-power — it  still  was  using  some  of  the  con- 
verted wood-burners  of  its  earliest  days — and 
Parsons  wanted  to  buy,  second-hand,  some  of  the 
older  engines  of  the  N.  Y.  C.  &  H.  E.  He  argued 
that  his  bridges  would  not  permit  the  purchase  of 
heavy  modern  locomotives. 

But  the  Central  folk  argued  back  that  they  had 
scrapped  all  their  light  engines,  save  those  that 
they  still  needed  for  certain  local  and  branch-line 


218  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

services.  In  the  long  run  they  drew  up  plans  for 
locomotives  suited  to  the  special  necessities  of  the 
Home  road  and  presented  Parsons  with  them. 
From  that  time  on  he  came  frequently  to  consult 
the  technical  authorities  in  the  Grand  Central 
Depot. 

"I  have  a  first-class  staff  working  for  me  and 
I  don't  have  to  pay  it  a  blessed  cent,"  he  would 
chuckle  as  he  went  out  of  its  doors. 

The  funny  part  of  it  all  being  that  the  Vander- 
bilts  apparently  were  perfectly  willing  that  he 
should  make  such  use  of  their  staff. 

Here  was  Charles  Parsons  steadily  proposing 
the  most  disagreeable  things  to  the  Vanderbilts. 
The  Lehigh  Valley  which,  like  the  Lackawanna  of 
a  decade  before,  had  begun  to  tire  of  the  Erie  as 
a  sole  entrance  into  the  Buffalo  gateway,  and  was 
building  its  own  line  into  that  important  city, 
was  making  eyes  at  the  Eome,  Watertown  &  Og- 
densburgh.  Parsons,  still  smoking  his  cigarettes, 
made  eyes  back  at  the  Lehigh  Valley  and  its 
owners,  the  enormously  wealthy  Packer  family  of 
South  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania.  Together  they 
slipped  into  an  alliance.  For  ten  years  Charles 
Parsons  had  coveted  an  entrance  of  his  own  into 
Buffalo.  The  Packers  wanted  to  get  from  Buffalo 
into  the  traffic  hub  of  Suspension  Bridge.  On  a 


and  Oadensburgh  Railroad  219 

competitive  basis,  neither  the  existing  lines  of  the 
New  York  Central  nor  of  the  Erie  between  those 
two  places  were  open  to  them. 

The  interests  of  the  R.  W.  &  O.  and  the  Lehigh 
Valley  in  this  situation  were  identical.  It  was 
quite  logical  therefore  that  they  should  get  to- 
gether and  form  the  Buffalo,  Thousand  Islands  & 
Portland ;  quite  a  grand  sounding  appellation  for 
twenty-four  miles  of  railroad,  which  was  to  run 
from  Buffalo  to  Niagara  Falls  and  Suspension 
Bridge.  Once  formed,  there  in  the  eventful  mid- 
summer of  1890,  no  time  was  lost  in  acquiring  the 
right-of-way  for  this  important  railroad  link.  As 
a  separate  corporation  it  expended  something 
over  a  million  dollars  for  land  and  for  preliminary 
grading. 

To  complete  its  line  it  was  necessary  that  it 
should  cross  the  lines  of  the  then  New  York  Cen- 
tral &  Hudson  River — not  once,  but  several  times. 
Up  to  that  time  the  New  York  Central  had  gen- 
erally pursued  a  pretty  broad-gauge  policy  in  per- 
mitting other  railroads  to  cross  its  lines.  Even 
in  this  instance  it  granted  the  necessary  permis- 
sions, but  this  time  Mr.  Parsons  went  north  to  the 
Grand  Central  Depot  and  not  Mr.  Vanderbilt 
south  to  Wall  Street.  Mr.  Vanderbilt  was  quite 
willing  that  Mr.  Parsons  should  cross  his  tracks, 
when  and  where  it  was  absolutely  necessary,  but, 


220  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

of  course,  Mr.  Parsons  would  reciprocate,  if  ever 
the  occasion  should  arise  and  permit  the  New  York 
Central  to  cross  the  Borne,  Watertown  &  Ogdens- 
burgh  tracks,  if  ever  it  should  become  necessary? 
What  is  sauce  for  the  goose  is  sauce  for  the 
gander. 

What  could  Mr.  Parsons  do?  Mr.  Parsons  ac- 
ceded. Of  course.  Reciprocal  contracts  cover- 
ing all  future  grade-crossing  matters  were  signed; 
and  duplicate  copies  of  the  peace  treaty,  signed, 
sealed  and  delivered.  After  which  work  on  the 
Buffalo,  Thousand  Islands  &  Portland  went  ahead 
quite  merrily  once  more. 

It  was  in  December  of  that  same  year,  1890, 
hardly  more  than  six  months  after  Mr.  Austin 
Corbin  had  made  the  first  of  his  Queen-of-Sheba 
visits  to  Watertown  that  that  brisk  community 
found  that  it  was  to  have  a  very  special  gift  in 
its  Christmas  stocking.  Watertown  was  not  only 
going  to  have  one  new  railroad.  It  was  going 
to  have  two.  Intimations  reached  it — in  that 
strange  but  sure  way  that  big  business  always  has 
of  sending  out  its  intimations — that  Watertown 
within  the  twelvemonth  was  to  be  upon  the  lines  of 
the  New  York  Central.  That  seemed  to  be  too 
good  to  be  true.  But  it  was  true.  Telegraphic 
confirmation  followed  upon  the  heels  of  mere 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  221 

rumor.  The  Vanderbilts,  tired  of  shilly-shallying 
with  Parsons  and  his  railroad  and  of  playing  sec- 
ond fiddle  to  Ontario  &  Western,  were  going  to 
build  their  own  feeder  line  into  Northern  New 
York.  Already,  it  was  organized  and  named — the 
Mohawk  &  St.  Lawrence — preliminary  surveying 
parties  were  already  struggling  through  the  deep 
December  drifts. 

All  the  oldtime  rage  and  rivalry  between  Utica 
and  Borne  as  to  which  should  be  the  recognized 
gateway  broke  out  anew.  The  jealousies  of  thirty 
and  forty  years  before  were  renewed.  Even 
Herkimer  joined  the  squabble,  pushing  forward 
the  narrow-gauge  line  that  had  been  built  from 
her  limits  north  to  the  little  village  of  Newport 
and  Poland  some  years  before.  Finally  talk  led 
to  promises.  Subscription  papers  were  passed. 
Eome  trotted  out  the  terminal  grounds  and  the 
right-of-way  for  the  Black  Eiver  &  Utica  Railroad 
that  had  passed  her  by  there  before  the  beginnings 
of  the  sixties.  Utica  met  her  offers.  Yet  it 
seemed  as  if  Borne  was  to  be  chosen.  The  conges- 
tion of  the  New  York  Central  yards  in  Utica — it 
was,  of  course,  well  before  the  days  of  the  Barge 
Canal  and  the  straightening  of  the  Mohawk — 
made  Borne  the  most  practical  terminal. 

Bailroad  meetings  were  again  the  order  of  the 
day  throughout  the  North  Country.  Carthage 


222  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

vied  with  Gouverneur  and  even  Cape  Vincent, 
stung  to  the  quick  by  the  neglect  of  her  port  by  the 
Parsons'  management,  joined  in  the  clamor.  And 
Watertown?  Watertown  was  beside  herself  with 
enthusiasm.  She  saw  herself  as  the  future  rail- 
road capital  of  the  state.  Corbin  and  his  local 
backers  were  not  slow  to  take  advantage  of  the 
situation.  Adroitly  they  urged  that  while  the 
Mohawk  &  St.  Lawrence  would  approach  the  city 
from  the  southeast  and  the  upper  Black  River 
valley,  the  Camden,  Watertown  &  Northern  would 
reach  it  from  the  southwest.  They  even  hinted  at 
the  possibilities  of  a  union  station.  Perhaps,  the 
union  station  would  be  big  enough  to  take  in  a 
recreant  but  reformed  R.  W.  &  0.  And  some  one 
hinted  that  the  Canadian  Pacific  by  a  series  of 
wondrous  bridges  was  to  build  into  the  town  from 
Kingston  and  the  northwest.  In  the  union  sta- 
tion of  Watertown  of  a  decade  hence  one  was  to 
be  able  to  go  in  through  limited  trains-de-luxe  to 
almost  any  quarter  of  the  land.  And  this  in  a 
town  which  up  to  that  day,  at  least,  had  never 
seen  a  dining-car  come  into  its  ancient  station. 

All  that  winter  Watertown  ate  railroads,  slept 
railroads,  dreamed  railroads.  Surveyors  went 
across  back  lots  and  put  funny  little  yellow 
wooden  stakes  in  the  snow  drifts,  where  there  had 
been  potato  rows  the  previous  summer  and  the 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad 

next  might  see  the  beginnings  of  a  great  railroad 
yard.  Soft-voiced  and  persuasive  young  men 
went  before  the  Common  Council  and  had  all 
manner  of  permissive  ordinances  passed  without 
a  single  word  of  protest.  Plans  and  routes  by  the 
dozen  were  filed  with  the  County  Clerk.  A  local 
poetess  burst  into  song  in  the  Times  in  com- 
memoration of  the  spirit  of  the  hour. 

As  I  look  back  upon  the  printed  records  of  these 
proceedings,  after  thirty  years,  quite  dispassion- 
ately, it  seems  to  me  that  there  was,  after  all,  an 
extraordinary  vagueness  in  the  plans  of  these 
railroad  promoters  of  that  strenuous  time.  The 
railroad  lines  ran  here  and  there  and  everywhere 
upon  the  map.  But  very  little  real  money  was 
expended,  either  in  land  or  in  construction.  The 
promoters,  of  both  of  the  proposed  new  railroads, 
who  suddenly  had  become  wondrously  accessible 
to  the  dear  public  and  its  advance  agents,  the 
newspaper  reporters,  were  taking  very  few  real 
steps  toward  the  real  construction  of  a  railroad. 

Mr.  Parsons,  stung  to  the  quick  apparently  by 
the  newfound  energy  of  his  friend,  Mr.  Vander- 
bilt,  retaliated  at  once  by  threats  of  building  a  line 
from  his  southeastern  terminal  at  Utica  through 
the  Mohawk  valley — even  through  the  narrow 
impasse  of  Little  Falls — to  Rotterdam  Junction 


224  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

and  the  Fitchburg  some  seventy  miles  distant. 
To  link  Utica  with  Rome  and  (by  a  more  direct 
line,  than  by  the  way  of  Richland),  with  Oswego 
and  his  straight  through  route  to  Suspension 
Bridge  would  be  the  next  and  a  comparatively 
easy  step.  That  done  he  would  at  least  have  a 
powerful,  competitive  route,  as  against  the  New 
York  Central's,  east  to  Troy  and  Boston — and 
for  ten  months  of  the  year  by  water  down  the 
Hudson  to  New  York.  Yet  I  cannot  find  any 
record  of  Mr.  Parsons  buying  any  real  estate  in 
the  Mohawk  valley. 

Finally  the  Camden,  Watertown  &  Northern  did 
buy  two  plats  of  land  somewhere  in  the  outskirts 
of  Watertown,  a  fact  which  was  promptly  re- 
corded and  spread  to  the  four  winds.  It  did  more. 
It  began  laying  track.  It  laid  nearly  a  hundred 
feet  of  unballasted  track  in  the  yards  of  Taggart 
Brothers'  Paper  Mill  and  all  Watertown  went 
down  in  the  chilly  days  at  the  beginning  of  March 
and  venerated  that  little  piece  of  track.  It  was 
a  precious  symbol. 

To  offset  land-buying  and  track-laying  the 
Vanderbilts  sent  the  flower  of  their  railroad 
flocks  up  to  see  Watertown,  to  see  and  be  seen,  to 
ask  questions  and  to  be  interviewed.  More  maps 
were  filed.  One  only  had  to  squint  one 's  eyes  half 
closed  and  see  the  New  York  Central  feeder  fol- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  225 

lowing  the  north  side  of  the  river  through  the 
town,  and  the  Camden,  Watertown  &  Northern 
squeezing  its  way,  somehow,  along  the  south  side 
of  it.  The  enthusiasm  quickened.  A  despatch 
from  Utica  said  that  the  contractors,  their  men 
and  their  horses  were  setting  up  their  quarters 
upon  the  old  Oneida  County  Fair  Grounds.  Ac- 
tual construction  of  the  Mohawk  &  St.  Lawrence 
was  to  begin  within  the  fortnight.  Watertown 
braced  up  and  finished  the  subscription  for  the 
purchase  of  the  right-of-way  and  depot  site  for 
the  new  road  through  its  heart. 

And  then? 

Then— 

On  the  fourteenth  day  of  March,  1891,  at  one 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  a  quiet  little  telegraphic 
message — unemotional  and  uninspired,  flashed  its 
monotonous  way  over  the  railroad  wires  into  the 
gray  old  Watertown  passenger  station  back  of  the 
Woodruff  House.  It  read,  as  follows: 

OSWEGO,  March  14,  1891. 
To  all  Division  Superintendents: 

The  entire  road  and  property  of  this  company 
has  been  leased  to  the  New  York  Central  &  Hud- 
son Kiver  Railroad,  and  by  direction  of  the  Presi- 
dent, I  have  delivered  possession  to  H.  Walter 


226  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Webb,  Third  Vice-President  of  that  company. 
Each  Superintendent  please  acknowledge  and  ad- 
vise all  agents  on  your  division  by  wire. 

(Signed)     E.  S.  BOWEN, 

General  Manager. 

And  Watertown  I 

Poor  Watertown! 

It  was  as  if  a  man  had  touched  the  tip  of  a 
lighted  cigar  to  a  tiny,  but  much  distended  gas- 
balloon. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   COMING  OF  THE   NEW  YORK   CENTRAL 

OUT  of  the  vast  wreckage  of  great  hopes  and 
broken  ambitions  there  slowly  arose  the 
smoke  of  a  great  wrath.  Watertown,  in  particu- 
lar, smoldered  in  her  anger.  Her  position  was 
a  most  uncomfortable  one.  Her  pride  had  not 
only  been  touched  but  sorely  tried.  She  felt,  and 
truly,  that  she  had  helped  to  shake  the  bushes 
while  the  New  York  Central  got  all  the  plums.  It 
hurt.  Her  traditional  rivals  pointed  their  fingers 
of  fine  scorn  toward  her.  Ogdensburgh  chuckled 
with  glee.  Oswego  chortled. 

Yet  out  of  her  uncomfortable  position  she  was 
yet  to  gain  much.  She  was  in  a  position  not  only 
to  demand  but  to  receive.  And  because  of  the 
inherent  power  of  that  position  the  ranking 
officers  of  the  New  York  Central  made  every 
effort  to  placate  her.  For  one  of  the  very  few 
times,  if  not  indeed  the  only  time  in  his  life, 
Cornelius  Vanderbilt — then  the  ranking  head  of 
the  family — made  public  appearance  upon  the 

227 


228  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

stage  of  her  Opera  House,  before  a  great  throng 
of  her  citizens,  who  crowded  that  ample  place  and 
sat  and  stood  there  with  anger  in  their  hearts,  but 
with  justice  in  their  minds.  They  had  not  appre- 
ciated being  made  dupes.  And  yet  they  stood 
there  willing  to  give  the  newcomers  the  square 
deal.  Which  spoke  whole  volumes  for  their  up- 
bringing. 

That  was  a  memorable  night  in  the  history  of 
"Watertown;  the  evening  of  March  24,  1891.  The 
meeting  at  the  City  Opera  House  had  been  hastily 
arranged.  The  telegraph  wires  only  that  morn- 
ing had  announced  the  coming  of  Mr.  Vanderbilt, 
accompanied  by  Mr.  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  his  per- 
sonal friend  and  adviser  and  at  that  time  Presi- 
dent of  the  New  York  Central  &  Hudson  River,  as 
well  as  a  small  group  of  other  railroad  officers. 
The  party  had  left  New  York  the  preceding  even- 
ing. All  that  day  it  held  meetings  in  the  North 
Country — at  Carthage,  at  Gouverneur,  at  Pots- 
dam and  at  Ogdensburgh.  To  a  large  extent 
these  meetings  were,  however,  somewhat  perfunc- 
tory. The  real  event  of  that  memorable  day  was 
the  evening  meeting  at  Watertown.  In  announc- 
ing the  affair,  but  a  few  hours  before,  the  editor 
of  the  Times  (we  suspect  Mr.  William  D.  McKins- 
try's  own  brilliant  hand  in  the  penning  of  these 
paragraphs)  had  said: 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  229 

"Of  course  Mr.  Depew  will  be  the  spokesman 
of  the  party.  Having  had  his  dinner,  which  will 
be  at  his  own  expense,  he  will  be  in  a  good  mood 
to  meet  our  citizens,  and  will,  of  course,  have 
many  pleasant  things  to  say.  But  we  hope  he 
will  come  no  joke  on  our  citizens.  With  us,  this 
railroad  business  is  no  joking  matter.  It  affects 
us  closely;  it  comes  right  into  our  homes,  affects 
our  comfort  of  living  and  the  prosperity  of  our 
business  enterprises.  It  puts  more  or  less  coal 
in  our  fires  to  warm  our  homes,  according  to  the 
price  we  have  to  pay  for  it,  and  it  makes  a  differ- 
ence with  how  we  are  to  be  fed  and  clothed. 
This  new  railroad  monopoly  has  the  power,  if  it 
chooses,  to  make  us  the  most  happy,  contented  and 
prosperous  people,  or  the  most  dejected  and  dis- 
contented. ...  It  is  a  great  power  to  have  and  it 
calls  for  the  utmost  consideration  in  its  use.  .  .  ." 

So  was  laid  the  platform  for  the  evening  meet- 
ing; fairly  and  squarely.  To  it  the  New  York 
Central  officers  responded,  fairly  and  squarely. 
Even  the  genial  Doctor  Depew,  to  whom  a  speech 
without  a  funny  story  was  as  a  circus  without  an 
elephant,  respected  the  real  seriousness  of  the 
issue.  At  the  beginning  he  told  some  funny 
stories — of  course.  He  alluded  playfully  to  the 
fact  that  the  citizens  of  Watertown  had  met  them 
without  a  band — referring  inf erentially  to  the  first 


230  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

official  visit  of  Charles  Parsons  as  President  of 
the  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh,  upon  which 
occasion  the  City  Band  had  been  engaged  and  the 
whole  affair  given  the  appearance  of  a  fete.  Mr. 
Depew  alluded  half  jestingly  to  the  demise  of  the 
Mohawk  &  St.  Lawrence  and  then  turned  seriously 
to  the  real  kernel  of  the  situation — the  inevitable 
tendency  of  American  railroads  toward  consolida- 
tion into  larger  single  operating  units. 

The  merger  of  the  Utica  &  Black  River  into  the 
Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  five  years  be- 
fore had  been  in  obedience  to  such  a  natural  law. 
The  R.  W.  &  0.  system,  reaching  only  Northern 
New  York,  disconnected  and  not  united  to  the 
great  railroad  properties  of  the  country  which 
spread  all  over  the  face  of  the  United  States,  had, 
partly  by  reason  of  its  isolation,  failed  to  properly 
develop  the  territory  that  it  had  set  out  to  serve. 
It  had  been  hedged  in  by  barriers  that  it  could  not 
surmount. 

It  was  a  good  speech,  filled  not  only  with  good 
intention,  but  with  a  deal  of  economic  hard  sense. 
The  crowded  Opera  House  listened  to  it  with 
courtesy,  with  attention  and  with  applause.  But 
always  with  a  feeling  that  the  deeds  of  the  new 
management  and  not  their  mere  words  or 
promises  would  be  the  atonement  for  the  indignity 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  231 

that  had  been  heaped  upon  the  town.    And  the 
next  evening  the  Times  again  said  editorially: 

".  .  .  Mr.  Depew  appeared  last  evening  and 
made  the  apology  which  is  reported  in  full  in  our 
local  columns.  He  did  it  nicely.  He  called  it 
frescoing.  Whitewashing  is  the  common  name 
for  it  when  the  job  is  done  by  less  artistic  hands. 
But,  by  whatever  name,  it  was  pleasantly  received 
by  an  audience  which  packed  the  Opera  House 
and  a  good  feeling  was  created.  Mr.  Depew  .  .  . 
did  not  go  into  any  detailed  statement  of  what  the 
new  management  of  the  B.  W.  &  0.  proposed  to  do 
except  to  make  the  general  statement  that  they 
had  come  to  stay ;  that  our  interests  were  mutual ; 
that  in  building  up  the  prosperity  of  this  section 
they  would  be  adding  to  their  own  prosperity  and 
that  they  would  be  one  with  us  in  every  way.  In 
carrying  out  this  assurance  everything  else  must 
follow,  and  therefore  it  is  sufficient  and  satisfac- 
tory to  our  citizens.  They  will  give  the  manage- 
ment a  good,  fair  chance  to  carry  out  this  assur- 
ance and  wait  confidently  for  acts  to  take  the  place 
of  words  .  .  ." 

That  the  new  management  had  some  real  de- 
sire to  assuage  the  extremely  irritated  local  situ- 
ation became  evident  within  the  next  few  days. 


232  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

The  members  of  the  Vanderbilt  party  had  had 
many  quiet  consultations  with  the  leading  men  of 
Watertown  and  the  North  Country  generally ;  had 
noted  with  great  patience  and  care  the  many, 
many  transport  grievances  of  the  entire  territory. 
And  proceeded  wherever  it  was  possible  to  rem- 
edy these,  at  once. 

As  a  first  earnest  of  its  desires  it  tore  down  the 
high,  unpainted,  hemlock  fence  around  the  Water- 
town  passenger  station.  That  high-board  fence 
had  been  an  eyesore.  It  had  been  far  worse  than 
that  however.  It  had  been  a  slap  in  the  face  to 
the  average  Watertownian  who  for  years  past  had 
regarded  it  as  part  of  his  inherent  right  and  privi- 
lege to  go  down  to  the  depot  whenever  and  as 
often  as  he  pleased,  not  alone  to  greet  friends  or 
to  see  them  off,  but  also  for  the  sheer  joy  of  see- 
ing the  cars  come  in  and  depart.  Upon  the  oc- 
casion of  the  state  firemen 's  convention  in  the  pre- 
ceding August,  the  E.  W.  &  0.  management 
caused  the  ugly  fence  to  be  builded — as  a  tempo- 
rary measure.  But  the  firemen 's  convention  gone 
and  a  matter  of  joyous  memory,  the  fence  re- 
mained. One  might  only  enter  within  upon  show- 
ing one's  ticket. 

Now,  no  matter  how  common  and  sensible  a 
practice  that  might  be  elsewhere,  in  this  broad 
world,  Watertown  resented  it,  as  an  invasion  of 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  233 

personal  privilege.  It  protested  to  the  R.  W.  &  0. 
management  over  at  Oswego.  Its  protests  were 
laughed  at.  The  fence  remained.  The  New  York 
Central  tore  it  down  .  .  .  within  a  fortnight  after 
it  had  acquired  the  road. 

I  have  mentioned  this  episode  in  some  detail 
because  it  is  so  typical  of  the  fashion  that  so  many 
railroad  managements,  and  with  so  much  to  gain, 
go  blindly  ahead  neglecting  utterly  the  one  great 
thing  essential  toward  the  gaining  of  their  larger 
ends — public  sympathy  and  public  support. 
Charles  Parsons,  with  everything  to  gain  from 
Northern  New  York,  scoffed  at  these  great  aids, 
so  easily  purchased.  Vastly  bigger  than  Sloan  in 
most  ways,  he,  nevertheless,  shared  the  contempt 
of  the  old  genius  of  the  Lackawanna  for  public 
opinion.  The  Vanderbilts  rarely  have  made  this 
mistake  with  their  railroads.  I  think  that  it  can 
be  put  down  as  one  of  the  great  open  secrets  of 
their  success. 

Similarly  Parsons  had  offended  Watertown  by 
his  treatment  of  its  newly  born  street  railway.  It 
had  been  planned  to  extend  in  a  single  straight 
line  from  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  city,  just 
beyond  SewalPs  Island  through  High,  and  State, 
and  Court,  and  Main  Streets  to  the  westerly  limits 
of  the  town,  and  thence  down  the  populous  valley 


234  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

of  the  Black  River  through  Brownville  to  the 
little  manufacturing  village  of  Dexter,  eight  miles 
distant.  In  this  course  it  needed  to  cross  the 
steam  railroad  tracks  four  times  at  grade — all  of 
these  within  the  city  limits. 

The  old  E.  W.  &  0  had  stoutly  fought  these 
crossings;  using  one  specious  argument  after  an- 
other. The  new  management  of  the  property  said 
that  the  crossings  could  go  down  as  soon  as  the 
street  railway  company  could  have  them  manu- 
factured. It  kept  its  word.  The  street  railway 
went  ahead — and  thrived;  and  the  steam  railroad 
lost  little  by  its  slight  competition  between  Water- 
town  and  Brownville. 

One  other  very  popular  form  of  grievance  still 
remained — I  shall  take  up  the  question  of  the 
freight  and  passenger  rates  at  another  time — the 
persistent  refusal  of  the  Parsons '  administration 
to  install  through  all-the-year  sleeping-car  service 
between  Watertown  and  New  York.  The  Vander- 
bilts  installed  that  service,  also  one  between  Os- 
wego  and  New  York  within  three  weeks  of  their 
acquisition  of  the  road.  These  have  remained 
ever  since  with  the  single  exception  of  a  short 
period  during  the  Chicago  World's  Fair,  when 
the  extreme  shortage  of  sleeping-cars  induced  the 
headquarters  of  the  New  York  Central  tempo- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  235 

rarily  to  withdraw  the  Water-town  cars.  A  pro- 
test from  the  Northern  New  York  metropolis 
brought  them  back — within  seven  days'  time. 

The  new  management  did  more.  It  instituted 
Sunday  trains  upon  the  line;  also  as  an  all- 
the-year  feature,  a  travel  necessity  for  which 
the  North  Country  had  cried  for  years,  vainly. 
It  placed  parlor-cars  upon  the  principal  trains.  It 
shortened  the  running-time  of  all  of  these. 
It  showed  in  almost  every  conceivable  fashion  a 
real  desire  to  propitiate  its  public.  And  for  that 
desire  much  of  the  Mohawk  &  St.  Lawrence  fiasco 
was  eventually  forgiven  it. 

One  other  problem — and  a  passing  large  one- 
confronted  it;  the  question  of  taking  proper  care 
of  the  official  personnel  of  the  Rome  road.  That 
is  always  a  difficult  and  delicate  question  in  a 
merger  of  large  properties.  .  .  .  The  Parsons 
family  was  taken  care  of — although  in  the  entire 
transaction  it  had  taken  pretty  good  care  of  itself. 
Arrangements  were  made  to  carry  its  members 
upon  the  New  York  Central  pay-rolls  for  a  season, 
even  though  they  were  quickly  off  and  into  new 
enterprises — the  New  York  &  New  England  and 
South  Carolina  Eailroad — but  never  again  was 
there  to  be  such  a  killing  as  they  had  had  in  the 


236  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh.  Such  an  op- 
portunity does  not  arise  once  in  a  lifetime;  not 
once  in  a  thousand  lifetimes. 

The  rest  of  the  official  roster  was  to  be  con- 
tinued, for  the  next  two  or  three  months  at  any 
rate.  With  great  astuteness  the  Vanderbilts 
planned  to  upset  the  operation  of  the  road,  to  the 
least  possible  degree.  It  was  to  keep  its  name 
and  its  individuality  as  far  as  was  possible.  As  a 
matter  of  operating  convenience  it  was  arranged 
to  abolish  the  auditing  offices  at  Oswego  and  to 
have  the  B.  W.  &  0.  agents  and  conductors  make 
their  reports  direct  to  the  New  York  Central 
headquarters  in  the  Grand  Central  Station,  in 
New  York  City.  Similarly  orders  went  forth 
from  those  headquarters  to  drop  the  old  name, 
"Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh "  from  the 
locomotive  tenders  and  the  sides  of  the  passenger- 
cars.  A  rather  bitter  blow  that  was.  With  all 
of  its  hatred  against  the  property  at  one  time  and 
another,  the  North  Country  cherished  a  real  affec- 
tion for  the  name.  In  deference,  to  which  senti- 
ment, the  Vanderbilts  still  clung  to  it  for  a  num- 
ber of  years;  in  their  advertising  and  printed 
matter  of  every  sort.  It  was  necessary,  in  their 
opinion,  to  emblazon  "New  York  Central77  upon 
their  newly  acquired  rolling-stock  in  order  to  per- 
mit a  greater  flexibility  in  its  interchange  with 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  237 

that  they  already  held.  They  had  not  owned  the 
R.  W.  &  0.  a  fortnight  before  its  eternal  shortage 
of  motive-power  had  been  relieved,  by  the  assign- 
ment to  it  of  engines  No.  316  and  No.  414  of  the 
N.  Y.  C.  &  H.  R.  R.  And  it  should  not  be  for- 
gotten that  one  large  reason  for  all  of  these  orders 
was  the  large  affection  of  the  Vanderbilt  family 
for  the  name  and  the  fame  of  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral. Both  have  loomed  large  in  their  eyes. 

The  old  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh, 
quickly  reorganized  in  that  March-time  of  1891, 
had  then  as  its  chief  officers  the  following  men : 

President,  CHARLES  PARSONS,  New  York 

First  V 'ice-President,  CLAREXCE  S.  DAY,  New  York 

Second  Vice-President,  CHARLES  PARSONS,  JR.,  New  York 

Third  Vice- President,  H.  WALTER  WEBB,  New  York 

Secretary  and  Treasurer,  J.  A.  LAWYER,  New  York 

Freight  Traffic  Manager,  L.  A.  EMERSON,  New  York 

Gen.  Pass.  Agent,  THEODORE  E.  BUTTERFIELD,  Oswego 

General  Manager,  E.  S.  BOWEN,  Oswego 

Supt.  of  Transportation,  W.  W.  CURRIER,  Oswego 

Master  Mechanic,  GEORGE  H.  HASELTON,  Oswego 

Superintendents 

W.  S.  Jones,  Watertown  H.  W.  Hammond,  Carthage 

I.  H.  McEwen,  Oswego 

Mr.  Webb,  who  also  was  the  Third  Vice-Presi- 
dent of  the  New  York  Central  &  Hudson  River, 
was  now,  of  course,  the  real  guiding  head  of 


238  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

the  property.  Well  schooled  in  the  Vanderbilt 
methods  of  railroad  operation,  it  was  his  task  to 
begin  their  introduction  into  the  newly  acquired 
railroad.  How  well  he  succeeded  can  easily  be 
adjudged  by  the  results  that  were  attained.  They 
need  no  comment  by  the  historian. 

To  this  group  of  men  was  given  the  operation 
of  643  miles  of  busy  single-track  railroad.  Prior 
to  the  acquisition  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.,  the  New  York 
Central  &  Hudson  Eiver,  itself,  had  only  contained 
some  1420  miles  of  line,  including  those  which  it 
held  on  leasehold.  The  Rome  road  then  had  given 
it  upwards  of  two  thousand  miles  of  route  line — 
not  to  be  confused  with  mere  miles  of  trackage, 
which  would  run  to  a  far  greater  total.  The  capi- 
tal stock  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.  as  shown  on  its  balance- 
sheet  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1890,  was 
$6,230,100,  of  which  $238,243  was  still  in  the  com- 
pany's treasury.  Its  funded  debt  came  to  $12,- 
672,090  (this  latter  included  income  bonds,  also  in 
the  company's  treasury).  In  addition  to  which 
there  was  a  profit  and  loss  account  of  $762,298. 
Parsons  had  builded  up  a  real  railroad.  Always 
himself  short  of  ready  cash  he  had  acquired  a 
habit  of  dealing  in  millions — in  a  day  when  a  mil- 
lion dollars  still  represented  a  good  deal  of  money. 

The  real  problem  of  the  new  management  of 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  239 

the  Rome  road  lay,  however,  in  an  immediate  re- 
adjustment of  its  rates;  particularly  its  freight 
rates.  The  hemlock  fence  around  the  Watertown 
depot,  the  persecution  of  the  little  street  railway 
system  of  that  community,  the  irritating  defects 
of  the  passenger  service,  were  in  the  eyes  of  the 
commercial  factors  of  the  North  Country  as  noth- 
ing compared  with  the  railroad  freight  tariffs 
that  it  was  called  upon  to  pay.  Charles  Parsons, 
as  I  have  said  already,  had  had  no  hesitation 
whatsoever  in  putting  the  burden  of  his  income 
necessities  upon  his  non-competitive  territory  in 
order  that  he  might  be  in  a  position  to  slash  rates 
right  and  left  wherever  and  whenever  he  was 
forced  to  compete. 

New  York  Central  control  promised  a  modifica- 
tion of  this  situation.  To  a  certain  extent  it  ac- 
complished it.  Some  of  the  rates  were  slashed 
from  twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent,  and  Mr.  Par- 
sons lived  long  enough  to  see  more  equitable  sys- 
tems of  freight-carrying  charges  established  on 
the  old  line.  It  was  only  a  short  time  after  the 
New  York  Central  had  acquired  the  Eome  road 
before  the  huge  Solvay  Process  Company  had  lo- 
cated themselves  on  the  western  limits  of  Syra- 
cuse. Their  location  there  was  due  primarily  to 
the  salt-beds  but  they  also  needed  great  quan- 
tities of  limestone  daily  for  their  products. 


240  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

This  the  R.  W.  &  O.  furnished  by  means  of 
an  attractive  low  rate.  And,  after  a  little  time, 
there  was  a  solid  train  each  day  from  Chaumont 
on  the  old  Cape  branch  to  Syracuse,  laden  exclu- 
sively with  limestone  rock.  At  other  times  there 
would  be  solid  trains  of  paper,  and  in  the  season, 
of  such  rare  specialties  as  strawberries  from  the 
Richland  section  and  turkeys  from  St.  Lawrence 
county  for  the  New  York  City  markets.  And 
despite  the  well-famed  superiority  of  the  North 
Country  in  cheese  making,  its  rich  dairy  areas 
were  invaded  by  the  milk-supply  companies  of  the 
swift-growing  metropolis. 

All  made  business — and  lots  of  it — for  the  new 
owners  of  the  North  Country's  old  road.  They 
could  afford  to  forget  Parsons'  dream  of  a 
through  route  along  the  northerly  border  of  the 
country — single-track  and  filled  with  hard  curva- 
ture and  grades — to  the  seaboard  docks  of  Port- 
land, Maine.  The  intensive  development  of  the 
Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  was  their  op- 
portunity; and  this  opportunity  they  promptly 
seized.  And  accomplished.  Even  the  once  de- 
spised Lake  Ontario  Shore  Railroad  came  at  last 
into  its  own.  Along  its  rails  upgrew  the  greatest 
orchard  industry  in  the  United  States.  And  even 
as  powerful  and  as  resourceful  a  railroad  as  the 
New  York  Central,  at  times,  is  hard  put  to  find 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  241 

sufficient  equipment  for  the  proper  handling  of  the 
vast  quantities  of  apples,  pears  and  peaches  that 
to-day  are  grown  upon  the  gentle  south  shore  of 
Ontario. 

The  Vanderbilts  paid  a  high  price  for  the  B.  W. 
&  0.  And  then  it  was  a  bargain.  Not  only  was 
competition  practically  forestalled  forever  in  one 
of  the  richest  industrial  and  agricultural  areas  in 
the  entire  United  States — by  an  odd  coincidence 
the  actual  acquisition  of  the  E.  W.  &  0.  was  fol- 
lowed a  few  months  later  by  the  enactment  of 
a  state  law  forbidding  one  railroad  acquiring  a 
parallel  or  competing  line — but  the  menace  of  the 
powerful  and  strategic  Canadian  Pacific  ever 
reaching  the  city  of  New  York  was  practically 
removed.  A  high  price,  and  yet  a  low  one. 
Which  marks  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  rail- 
road strategy. 

•  •  .».  :•  &»:  w 

For  some  time  now  we  have  lost  track  of  Mr. 
Austin  Corbin  and  his  ambitious  plan  of  the 
Camden,  Watertown  &  Northern.  Upon  the  ex- 
plosion of  the  Mohawk  &  St.  Lawrence  bubble  a 
good  many  keen  Watertown  men  who  were  bent, 
heart  and  soul,  upon  providing  their  community 
with  competitive  railroad  service  turned  earnestly 
toward  the  Corbin  scheme.  The  most  of  the 
$60,000  that  had  been  hastily  subscribed  in  the 


242  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

town  toward  providing  the  Mohawk  &  St.  Law- 
rence with  a  free  right-of-way  and  depot  grounds 
through  it,  was  turned  over  to  Mr.  Corbin.  Ed- 
ward M.  Gates,  who  was  very  active  in  the  matter, 
went  further.  He  wired  Mr.  H.  Walter  Wehb, 
who,  as  Third  Vice-President  of  the  New  York 
Central,  and  personal  representative  of  the  Van- 
derbilts,  had  made  a  personal  subscription  of 
$30,000  to  the  Watertown  fund,  if  he,  too,  would 
agree  to  turning  his  subscription  to  the  Camden, 
Watertown  &  Northern.  There  is  no  record  of  a 
reply  from  Mr.  Webb  on  this  proposition. 

Gradually  Corbin  grew  lukewarm  upon  his 
Camden,  Watertown  &  Northern  plan.  Truth  to 
tell,  he  had  lost  his  largest  opportunity  on  the  day 
that  Charles  Parsons  had  landed  the  Vanderbilts 
with  the  Borne,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh. 
They  had  needed  that  road.  They  had  never 
thought  that  they  needed  the  Elmira,  Cortland  & 
Northern,  not  even  at  the  time  that  Corbin  offered 
it  to  them  at  the  assumption  of  its  mortgage- 
bonds  and  its  fixed  charges.  Eventually  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  the  Lehigh  Valley,  which  at  just 
that  time  was  cherishing  a  fond  idea  that  it  might 
succeed  in  seriously  cutting  into  the  New  York 
Central's  traffic  between  the  seaboard  and  Cen- 
tral and  Northern  New  York,  to  buy  the  E.  C. 
&  N.  Thereafter  the  Corbin  project  disappeared. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  243 

From  time  to  time  it  has  been  revived,  as  a  pos- 
sible extension  of  the  Lehigh  Valley,  north  from 
its  present  unsatisfactory  terminal  at  Camden  to 
Watertown  or  even  beyond.  It  is  hardly  likely 
now  that  that  extension  will  ever  be  builded.  For 
one  thing,  the  day  of  building  competing  railroads 
is  over,  and  for  another,  the  E.  C.  &  N.  is  far  too 
unsatisfactory  a  railroad  dog  to  which  to  tie  an 
efficient  tail.  The  Ontario  &  Western  would  have 
been  a  far  more  advantageous  opportunity. 

Out  of  all  the  tumult  and  excitement  of  that 
strenuous  winter  of  1890-91  the  net  result  then  to 
Northern  New  York  was  no  new  railroads.  No, 
permit  me  to  correct  that  statement.  One  new 
railroad  was  builded,  and  an  important  enter- 
prise it  was.  A  brother  of  H.  Walter  Webb's,  Dr. 
Seward  Webb,  who  had  married  into  the  Vander- 
bilt  family,  was  instrumental  in  acquiring  from 
Henry  S.  Ives,  of  New  York,  and  some  of  his  as- 
sociates, the  little  narrow-gauge  Herkimer,  New- 
port &  Poland  Railroad,  stretching  some  twenty 
miles  northward  from  Herkimer  in  the  Mohawk 
valley  and  upon  the  main  line  of  the  New  York 
Central.  With  the  road  renamed,  the  Mohawk  & 
Malone,  Dr.  Webb  conceived  the  idea  of  building 
it  through  the  North  Woods  to  the  Canada  line. 
Where  the  long  ago  promoters  of  the  Sackett's 


244  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

Harbor  &  Saratoga  had  failed,  he  succeeded  after 
a  fashion.  He  moved  the  contractors'  duffle  from 
the  terminal  of  the  nascent  Mohawk  &  St.  Law- 
rence, at  Utica,  down  to  Herkimer,  and  began  by 
first  changing  the  H.  N.  &  P.  into  a  standard- 
gauge  railroad.  This  done  he  proceeded  with  its 
extension,  up  the  valley  of  the  Canada  Creek  to 
Eemsen,  where  it  touched  the  Utica  line  of  the 
E.  W.  &  0.  (the  main  line  of  the  former  Utica  & 
Black  Eiver). 

This  done,  and  arrangements  made  for  han- 
dling the  through  trains  of  the  Mohawk  &  Malone 
over  the  E.  W.  &  0.  for  the  twenty-two  miles  be- 
tween Utica  and  Eemsen,  Dr.  Webb  struck  his  new 
road  off  through  the  depths  of  the  untrodden  for- 
ests for  nearly  150  miles.  At  first  it  was  said  that 
it  was  his  aim  to  meet  and  terminate  his  line  at 
Tupper  Lake,  which  had  been  reached  by  the  one- 
time Northern  Adirondack  from  Moira,  on  the  Og- 
densburgh  &  Lake  Champlain.  Dr.  Webb  did 
meet  this  line,  also  the  tenuous  branch  of  the  Dela- 
ware &  Hudson,  extending  westward  from  Platts- 
burg,  and  then  down  to  Saranac  Lake  and  Lake 
Placid.  But  he  passed  by  all  of  these.  His 
scheme  was  a  far  more  ambitious  one.  He  had 
determined  to  build  a  railroad  from  Utica  to 
Montreal,  and  build  a  railroad  from  Utica  to  Mont- 
real he  did.  Before  he  was  done  the  New  York 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  245 

Central  had  its  own  rails  from  its  main  line  al- 
most into  the  very  heart  of  the  Canadian  me- 
tropolis. And  while  this  route  was  a  little  longer 
in  mileage  between  New  York  City  and  Montreal 
than  the  direct  routes  along  both  shores  of  Lake 
Champlain,  it  possessed  large  strategic  value  for 
the  western  end  of  the  New  York  Central  &  Hud- 
son Eiver.  And  it  was  entirely  a  Vanderbilt  line. 
As  such  it  probably  was  worth  all  it  cost;  and  it 
was  not  a  cheap  road  to  build. 

This  line  was  then  the  one  tangible  result  of  the 
most  agitated  railroad  experience  that  the  people 
of  New  York  state  ever  faced — with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  West  Shore  fiasco.  The  other 
plans — you  still  can  find  them  by  the  dozens  care- 
fully filed  in  the  clerk's  office  of  the  Northern 
New  York  counties — all  came  to  nought.  The 
folk  of  the  North  Country  ceased  their  dream- 
ings  ;  settled  down  to  the  intensive  development  of 
their  rarely  rich  territory.  And  sought  to  make 
its  existing  transport  facilities  equal  to  their 
every  need. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  END  OF  THE   STORY 

FOR  six  or  seven  years  after  it  had  secured 
possession  of  the  property,  the  New  York 
Central  continued  the  operation  of  the  Rome, 
Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh  as  a  separate  rail- 
road, to  a  very  large  degree,  at  least.  Gradually, 
however,  the  individual  executive  officers  of  the 
leased  road  ceased  to  exist;  in  some  cases  berths 
with  the  parent  road  were  found  for  them;  in 
others,  they  were  glad  to  retire  to  a  life  of  com- 
fortable ease.  The  separate  corporate  existence 
of  the  R.  W.  &  O.  as  well  as  that  of  the  Utica  & 
Black  River  and  the  Carthage,  Watertown  & 
Sackett's  Harbor,  was  continued,  however,  until 
1914,  when  the  Vanderbilts  made  a  single  corpora- 
tion under  the  title  of  the  New  York  Central  Rail- 
road of  some  of  their  most  important  properties ; 
the  New  York  Central  &  Hudson  River,  the  Lake 
Shore  &  Michigan  Southern  and  the  Rome,  Water- 
town  &  Ogdensburgh,  chief  amongst  them.  That 
step  taken,  the  R.  W.  &  0.  had  ceased  to  exist — 

246 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  247 

legally  as  well  as  technically.  Yet  the  work  that 
it  had  done  in  the  development  of  a  huge  com- 
munity of  communities  could  never  die.  It  was  to 
live  after  it ;  for  many  years  to  come. 

On  the  20th  of  May,  1891,  within  three  months 
after  the  leasing  of  the  Rome  road,  its  headquar- 
ters were  moved  back  to  the  place  where  originally 
they  had  been  located,  and  from  which  they  never 
should  have  been  removed — Watertown.  The  en- 
tire property  was  then  consolidated  into  a  single 
division,  and  Mr.  McEwen  brought  over  from  Os- 
wego  to  become  its  Superintendent,  with  Mr. 
Jones  his  assistant  at  Oswego  and  Mr.  Hammond 
in  a  similar  capacity  at  Watertown.  Mr.  P.  E. 
Crowley  was,  also,  promoted  at  this  time  to  the 
position  of  Chief  Despatcher  of  the  division. 
This  arrangement  did  not  long  continue,  however. 
Charles  Parsons  already  was  interesting  himself 
in  the  New  York  &  New  England,  and  presently 
he  called  to  that  property,  as  superintendents, 
Mr.  Bowen  and  Mr.  Jones,  who  established  their 
offices  at  Hartford,  Conn.  Soon  afterwards  Mr. 
Hammond  followed  them.  There  had  come  a  real 
change  in  regime. 

The  R.  W.  &  0.  division  of  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral &  Hudson  River,  as  the  old  property  then  be- 
came known,  stretched  all  the  way  from  Suspen- 


248  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

sion  Bridge  to  Massena  Springs  and  was,  I  be- 
lieve, with  its  643  miles  of  route  mileage,  the 
longest  single  railroad  division  in  the  United 
States  at  that  time.  To  run  that  division  was  a 
man's  job,  and  only  a  real  man  could  survive  it. 

Yet  into  that  grimy  old  station  at  Watertown 
there  came,  one  by  one,  a  succession  of  as  brilliant 
railroaders  as  this  country  has  ever  known — Van 
Etten,  Eussell,  Moon,  Hustis,  Christie.  These 
were  men  tested  and  tried  before  they  were  sent 
up  into  the  North  Country — it  was  no  place  for 
novices  up  there.  Once  there  they  made  good,  by 
both  their  wits  and  their  energies.  Success  on 
that  division  called  for  almost  superhuman  energy. 
And  when  once  it  had  been  won ;  when  down  in  the 
Grand  Central  they  could  say  that  "X — had  been 
to  Watertown  and  made  good  there, M  it  meant 
that  X — had  taken,  successfully,  the  thirty-third 
degree  in  modern  railroading. 

There  were  a  few  men  between  these  five, 
who  did  not  make  good — but  somehow  that  was 
never  charged  against  them.  Other  jobs  were 
found  for  them;  headquarters  felt  that  perhaps 
the  mistake  in  some  way  should  rightly  be 
charged  against  it. 

After  seventeen  years  of  operation  of  the  R.  W. 
&  0.  as  a  single  division  it  was  recognized  at  head- 
quarters that  the  test  was  not  a  fair  one ;  and  the 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  249 

famous  old  road  was  divided  into  two  divisions, 
with  Watertown  Junction  as  the  dividing  point 
and  the  divisions  named,  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
Ontario,  with  Watertown  and  Oswego  as  their  re- 
spective division  headquarters.  Just  why  the 
system  was  divided  in  that  way  no  one  seems  to 
know.  It  would  have  been  more  logical  to  have 
made  the  former  Eome  road,  east  of  Oswego,  a  sin- 
gle division  with  headquarters  at  Watertown,  and 
have  split  the  old  Lake  Ontario  Shore  into  the 
main  line  divisions  of  the  western  part  of  the  state. 
Yet  this  is  history,  and  not  a  criticism.  The  men 
who  have  run  the  New  York  Central  have  gen- 
erally known  their  business  pretty  well. 

Edgar  Van  Etten  came  to  the  railroad  game  by 
way  of  the  historic  Erie.  He  is  a  native  of  Port 
Jervis,  New  York,  a  famous  old  Erie  town,  and  it 
was  just  as  natural  as  buttering  bread  for  him  to 
go  to  work  upon  that  road,  rising  in  quick  suc- 
cessive steps,  freight  conductor,  to-day,  train- 
master to-morrow — oddly  enough  there  was  a 
little  time  when  he  was  Superintendent  of  the  On- 
tario division  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.,  in  the  days  of  the 
Parsons'  control.  Then  we  see  him  as  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Erie  at  Buffalo,  finally  General 
Manager  of  the  Western  New  York  Car  Associa- 
tion, in  that  same  busy  railroad  center.  From 


250  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

that  task  the  Vanderbilts  picked  him  for  an  even 
greater  one — taking  that  newly  merged,  single- 
track  643-mile-division  of  the  R.  W.  &  0.,  and 
putting  it  upon  their  operating  methods  and  dis- 
cipline. 

Only  an  Edgar  Van  Etten  could  have  done  the 
trick.  A  lion  of  a  man  he  was  in  those  Water- 
town  days,  relentless,  indomitable,  fearless — yet 
possessing  in  his  varied  nature  keen  qualities  of 
humor  and  of  human  understanding  that  were  tre- 
mendous factors  in  the  winning  of  his  success.  It 
was  but  natural  that  so  keen  a  talent  should  have 
been  recognized  in  his  promotion  from  Watertown 
to  the  vastly  responsible  post  of  General  Superin- 
tendent of  the  New  York  Central  at  the  Grand 
Central  Station.  In  those  days  the  position  of 
Operating  Vice-President  of  the  property  had  not 
been  created.  Nor  was  there  even  a  General 
Manager.  The  General  Superintendent  was  the 
big  boss  who  moved  the  trains  and  moved  them 
well.  If  he  could  not,  the  Vanderbilts  discovered 
it  before  they  ever  made  him  a  big  boss. 

Mr.  Van  Etten 's  final  promotion  came  in  his 
advancement  to  the  post  of  Vice-President  and 
General  Manager  of  their  important  Boston  & 
Albany  property;  a  position  on  that  road  corre- 
sponding to  the  presidency  of  almost  any  other 
one.  Here  he  remained  until  1907,  when  ill-health 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  251 

caused  his  retirement  from  railroading.  He 
moved  across  the  continent  to  California,  where 
he  is  to-day  an  enthusiastic  resident  of  Los 
Angeles. 

E.  G.  Eussell  was  cast  in  a  somewhat  gentler 
mold  than  Van  Etten.  Thorough  railroader  he 
was  at  that,  a  man  of  large  vision  and  seeking 
every  opportunity  for  the  advancement  of  the 
property  that  he  headed.  For  remember  that  in 
all  these  years  at  Watertown  these  men  were  vir- 
tual General  Managers  of  a  goodly  property,  in 
everything  but  actual  title.  Upon  their  initiative, 
upon  their  ability  to  make  quick  decisions — and 
accurate — in  crises,  to  handle  even  matters  of  a 
goodly  size  the  huge  division  rose  or  fell.  Theirs 
was  no  job  for  the  weakling  or  the  hesitant. 

Mr.  Eussell  was  neither  a  weakling  nor  hesitant. 
On  the  contrary  he  risked  much — even  the  friend- 
ship of  the  organized  labor  of  the  road — when  he 
felt  that  he  was  right  and  must  go  ahead  upon 
the  right  path.  Eventually  his  policies  in  regard 
to  labor  forced  his  retirement  from  the  E.  W.  &  0. 
division.  He  went,  capable  railroader  that  he  al- 
ways was,  to  Scranton  where  he  became  General 
Superintendent  of  the  Lackawanna.  From  there 
he  went  to  one  of  the  roads  in  lower  Canada,  and 
finally  to  Michigan,  where  he  met  his  tragic  death 


252  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

late  at  night  on  a  lonely  railroad  pier  in  the  dead 
of  winter. 

After  Russell,  Dewitt  C.  Moon;  a  man  with  an 
unusual  genius  for  placating  labor  and  getting  the 
very  best  results  out  of  it.  Mr.  Moon  succeeded 
Mr.  Eussell  as  Superintendent  at  Watertown, 
April  1,  1899,  leaving  that  post  September  1, 1902, 
to  become  General  Manager  of  the  Lake  Erie  & 
Western,  a  Vanderbilt  property  of  the  mid- West. 
He  had  been  schooled  in  that  family  of  railroads, 
starting  in  as  telegraph  operator  on  the  old  Dun- 
kirk, Allegheny  Valley  &  Pittsburgh,  which  was 
gradually  merged,  first  into  the  Lake  Shore  and 
then  into  the  parent  reorganized  New  York  Cen- 
tral of  to-day.  Before  that  reorganization,  he 
had  become  General  Manager  of  the  former  Lake 
Shore  in  some  respects  the  very  finest  of  the  old 
Vanderbilt  properties — at  Cleveland.  At  Cleve- 
land he  still  remains,  as  Assistant  to  the  Vice- 
President  of  the  New  York  Central  in  that  impor- 
tant city.  He  is  a  railroader  of  the  old  school, 
trained  in  exquisite  thoroughness  and  with  a  ca- 
pacity for  detail,  not  less  than  marvelous. 

Moon's  great  forte,  however,  was  and  still  is, 
cooperation.  Men  like  him.  He  likes  men.  A 
big  and  genial  nature,  a  quick  sympathy  and 
understanding  have  proved  great  assets  to  a  rail- 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  253 

road  executive.  These  assets  Moon  has  pos- 
sessed from  the  beginning.  Upon  them  he  had 
builded — and  upgrown. 

Still  another  of  this  famous  quintette  to  whom 
the  running  of  a  650  mile  railroad  division  was  as 
but  part  of  a  day's  work — James  H.  Hustis. 
More  than  any  of  the  three  who  preceded  him 
Hustis  is  in  every  sense  a  thorough  graduate  of 
the  Vanderbilt  school  of  railroading.  He  was 
born  to  it.  His  father,  too,  was  a  veteran  New 
York  Central  man.  "Jim"  Hustis  entered  that 
school  in  1878,  as  office-boy  to  the  late  John  M. 
Toucey,  then  General  Superintendent  of  the  New 
York  Central  in  the  old  Grand  Central  depot.  He 
rose  rapidly  in  the  ranks,  filling  several  superin- 
tendencies  in  the  old  parent  property  before  he 
went  to  Watertown,  in  the  late  summer  of  1902. 

He  left  there  on  October  1,  1906,  to  assume 
executive  charge  of  the  Boston  &  Albany.  And 
it  was  soon  after  he  left  that  the  old  division  was 
broken  into  two  parts  and  the  B.  W.  &  0.  ceased 
to  exist,  even  as  a  division  name.  Mr.  Hustis  is 
to-day  President  of  the  Boston  &  Maine  Railroad. 
He  holds  the  unique  distinction  of  having  headed 
the  three  most  important  railroads  of  New  Eng- 
land. After  leaving  the  office  of  Vice-President 
and  General  Manager  of  the  Boston  &  Albany — as 


254  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

we  have  already  seen  the  ranking  position  of  that 
property — he  was  for  a  time  President  of  the  New 
York,  New  Haven  &  Hartford,  before  going  to  his 
present  post  with  the  Boston  &  Maine.  That  he 
is  a  thorough  railroader,  hardly  needs  to  be  said 
here — if  nothing  else  said  that,  the  fact  that  he 
spent  four  successful  years  in  full  control  at 
Watertown,  of  itself  would  tell  it. 

After  Hustis,  Cornelius  Christie,  the  last  of  the 
executive  Superintendents  that  were  to  supervise 
the  operation  of  the  Rome,  Watertown  &  Ogdens- 
burgh  as  a  single  unit — why  the  folks  down  in  the 
Grand  Central  did  not  create  a  general  superin- 
tendency  at  Watertown,  I  never  could  understand. 
Christie,  a  huge  six-foot-three  man,  big  both 
physically  and  mentally,  also  was  trained  in  the 
wondrous  Vanderbilt  school  of  railroading.  Long 
service  both  upon  the  main  line  of  the  Central 
and  the  West  Shore,  equipped  him  most  ade- 
quately for  the  arduous  task  at  Watertown. 

It  was  in  Christie 's  day — in  the  summer  of 
1908 — that  the  famous  old  division  was  divided 
into  two  large  parts,  as  we  have  already  seen ;  the 
Ontario  and  the  St.  Lawrence.  For  three  years 
more,  Mr.  Christie  remained  at  Watertown,  as 
Superintendent  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  being  pro- 
moted from  that  post  to  a  similar  one  on  the 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  255 

busy  Hudson  Eiver  division  between  Albany  and 
New  York.  He  was  succeeded  at  Watertown  by 
P.  E.  Williamson,  the  present  General  Superin- 
tendent of  the  New  York  Central  at  Albany. 

At  the  time  Christie  became  Superintendent  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  Division  at  Watertown,  Frank 
E.  McCormack  was  set  up  in  a  similar  job,  head- 
ing the  Ontario  Division  at  Oswego.  The  genial 
Frank  was  E.  W.  &  0.  trained  and  bred.  As  far 
back  as  April  1,  1885,  he  was  working  for  the 
property  as  night  operator  and  pumper,  at  a 
salary  of  $25  a  month.  Some  one  must  have 
recognized  the  real  railroader  in  him,  however,  for 
but  a  year  later  his  "  salary "  was  raised  to  $30 
and  the  following  year  he  was  transferred  to  the 
Superintendent's  office  at  Watertown  as  confiden- 
tial clerk  and  operator.  From  that  time  on  his 
progress  was  steady  and  uninterrupted;  des- 
patcher,  chief  despatcher,  trainmaster,  and  with 
one  or  two  more  intermediate  steps,  Superintend- 
ent. 

To  attempt  even  a  listing  of  the  able  railroad 
crowd  that  hovered  around  the  old  Watertown 
depot,  in  the  years  that  measured  the  beginnings 
of  the  Vanderbilt  operation  of  the  old  Rome  road 
again,  would  be  quite  beyond  the  province  of  this 
little  book.  H.  D.  Carter,  Frank  E.  Wilson, 


256  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

George  C.  Gridley,  W.  H.  Northrop,  Clare  Harti- 
gan,  how  the  names  come  trippingly  to  mind! 
And  how  many,  many  more  there  are  of  them. 

Yet  I  cannot  close  these  paragraphs  without 
singling  out  two  of  them — Wilgus  and  Crowley. 
Here  are  two  more  graduates  of  its  hard,  hard 
school,  in  which  the  Rome  road  may  hold  exceed- 
ing pride.  Colonel  W.  J.  Wilgus  was  with  the  old 
division  for  but  four  years — from  1893  to  1897— 
but  they  were  years  of  exceeding  activity  in  the 
rebuilding  of  the  property;  particularly  its 
"  double-tracking "  and  the  extremely  important 
job  of  raising  the  track-levels  for  many  miles 
north  of  Eichland  so  that  the  eternal  enemy  of 
the  road — snow — would  have  a  much  harder  time 
henceforth  in  endeavoring  to  fight  it.  From  that 
job  he  went  to  far  bigger  ones ;  such  as  building 
the  new  Grand  Central  Terminal  and  installing 
electric  operation  on  the  lines  that  entered  it,  dig- 
ging the  Michigan  Central  tunnel  under  the  river 
at  Detroit  and  building  the  new  station  in  that 
city.  These  and  others.  But  none  more  interest- 
ing to  him,  I  dare  say,  than  the  task  that  he  laid 
out  overseas  in  the  Great  War,  building  and  ar- 
ranging the  rail  lines  of  communication  for  the 
American  Army  in  France.  A  job  to  which  he 
brought  all  his  experience,  his  great  energy  and 
his  rare  tact. 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  257 

And  finally,  Patrick  E.  Crowley.  Mr.  Crow- 
ley's  connection  with  the  Rome  road  goes  back  to 
the  Parsons'  regime — even  though  before  that 
day  he  had  had  eleven  hard  years  of  experience 
with  the  old  Erie;  in  about  every  conceivable  job 
from  station  agent  to  train  despatcher.  He  was 
with  the  R.  W.  &  0.,  however,  almost  an  even 
year  before  its  acquisition  by  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral— as  train  despatcher  at  Oswego.  In  May, 
1891,  he  was  transferred  to  Watertown  as  chief 
train  despatcher  and  later  as  train  master.  His 
stepping  upward  has  been  continuous  and  earned. 
To-day  as  Vice-President,  in  charge  of  operation, 
of  the  entire  New  York  Central  system  he  is 
recognized  as  one  of  the  king-pins  of  railroad 
operators  of  all  creation  and  is  the  same  simple 
and  unassuming  gentleman  that  one  found  him  in 
the  old  days  at  Oswego  and  Watertown. 

That  seems  to  be  the  mark  of  the  real  rail- 
roader, always.  Ostentation  does  not  get  a  man 
very  far  in  the  game.  In  the  North  Country  it 
got  him  nowhere,  whatsoever.  In  our  land  of  the 
great  snows  and  the  hard  years  a  very  real  and 
simple  democracy  plus  energy  and  some  real 
knowledge  of  the  problems  in  hand  were  the  only 
qualities  that  put  a  big  boss  ahead.  Forever — 
no  matter  what  the  name  or  how  long  the  division 
— the  job  up  there  was  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 


258  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

The  fit  man  might  be  here,  there,  anywhere.  He 
might  be  a  greaser  in  the  round-house,  a  news- 
butcher  upon  the  train,  an  office  boy  upstairs  in 
the  depot  headquarters,  an  operator  in  a  lonely 
country  station.  If  he  was  fit  he  got  ahead  and 
got  ahead  quickly.  Merit  won  its  own  promo- 
tion and  generally  won  it  pretty  quickly. 

Not  that  everything  was  always  plain  sailing. 
There  is  one  pretty  keen  railroad  executive  in  the 
land  who  remembers  his  joy  at  being  promoted  to 
Despatcher  on  the  old  Eome  road.  The  pay  was 
eighty  dollars  a  month,  which  was  good  in  those 
days.  He  walked  into  the  new  job  with  a  plenty 
of  cocksure  enthusiasm.  The  "  super "  did  not 
like  young  men  with  cocksure  enthusiasms.  He 
said  so,  frankly.  And  in  order  to  drive  his  ideas 
home  paid  the  young  man  the  Despatcher 's  rate 
for  thirty  days;  then,  for  the  next  five  or  six 
months  at  the  old-time  operator's  rate.  The 
young  man  caught  on.  He  understood.  A  job's 
a  job  and  a  boss  is  a  boss.  And  all  the  jobs  in  the 
world  are  not  worth  the  paper  that  they  are 
written  on,  unless  the  boss  wants  to  make  them 
so.  Which  may  be  put  down  as  an  unscientific 
maxim ;  yet  a  very  true  one  nevertheless. 

Back  of  these  men  who  sought  with  all  their 
energy  and  vigor,  of  mind  and  of  body  alike, 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railroad  259 

steadily  to  upbuild  the  old  Rome  road,  was  the 
great  wealth,  organization  and  esprit  de  corps  of 
one  of  the  leading  railroad  organizations  of  the 
world.  The  Vanderbilts  were  always  thorough 
sportsmen.  They  showed  it  in  their  reincarna- 
tion of  the  Borne,  Watertown  &  Ogdensburgh. 
Parsons  had  been  handicapped,  forever  and  a  day, 
by  the  constant  lack  of  ready  cash — there  have 
been  few  times  when  the  New  York  Central  has 
been  so  handicapped.  I  bear  no  brief  for  the 
Vanderbilts.  They  have  made  their  mistakes  and 
they  have  been  grievous  ones.  But  they  have  not 
often  made  the  mistake  of  being  miserly  with 
their  properties.  That  mistake  was  not  made  in 
Northern  New  York. 

Into  the  R.  W.  &  0.,  once  they  had  clinched  their 
title  to  it,  they  poured  money  like  water — when- 
ever they  could  be  shown  the  necessity  of  such  a 
procedure.  New  track  went  down  and  then  new 
bridges  went  up — superb  structures  every  one  of 
them — until  there  no  longer  were  any  limitations 
upon  the  motive-power  for  the  North  Country's 
rail  transport  system.  A  locomotive  that  could 
run  upon  the  main  line  could  run  practically  any- 
where upon  the  Rome  road  divisions.  And  when 
Watertown  complained  that  the  traffic  was  rising 
to  a  volume  that  no  longer  could  be  handled  upon 
a  single-track  basis,  the  Vanderbilts  double- 


260  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

tracked  the  road — in  all  of  its  essential  stretches, 
many,  many  miles  of  it  all  told.  They  built  and 
rebuilt  the  round-houses  and  the  shops.  "Prop- 
erty improvement"  became  their  slogan. 

In  such  property  improvement  Watertown  has 
always  shared,  most  liberally.  The  double-track- 
ing of  the  old  main-stem  of  the  E.  W.  &  0.  brought 
with  it  as  a  corollary  the  construction  of  a  much 
needed  freight  cut-off  outside  the  crowded  heart 
of  that  city.  That  done  the  local  freight  facilities 
were  removed  from  the  old  stone  freight-house 
opposite  the  passenger-station  and  that  staunch 
old  landmark  torn  down.  To  replace  it  a  huge 
freight  terminal  of  the  most  modern  type  and 
worthy  of  a  city  of  sixty  thousand  population  was 
erected  on  a  convenient  site  upon  the  North  side 
of  the  river.  As  a  final  step  in  this  program  of 
progress  the  old  depot  was  torn  away — without 
many  expressions  of  regret  on  the  part  of  the 
townsfolk — and  the  present  magnificent  passenger 
terminal  erected,  at  a  cost  of  close  to  a  quarter  of 
a  million  dollars.  The  management  of  what 
Watertown  will  always  know  as  the  "old  Rome 
road"  has  not  been  niggardly  with  its  chief  town. 

Nor  has  it  been  niggardly  with  any  other  parts 
of  Northern  New  York  territory.  Oswego  has  re- 
joiced in  a  new  station — the  blessed  old  Lake 
Shore  Hotel,  which  for  many  years  housed  tavern 


and  Ogdensburgh  Railr'oad  261 

and  railroad  offices  and  passenger  depot,  com- 
bined, is  now  a  thing  of  memory.  Ogdensburgh 
has  a  fine  new  station,  and  so  has  Massena 
Springs.  Norwood  still  worries  along  with  its 
old  depot,  but  Richland  rejoices  in  a  neat  but  ex- 
cellent structure,  in  which  the  Wright  brothers 
still  serve  the  coffee,  the  rolls,  the  sausage  and 
the  buckwheat  cakes  that  cannot  be  excelled.  The 
North  Country  has  never  taken  to  the  dining-car 
habit;  perhaps,  because  it  never  has  had  the 
chance.  But  it  actually  likes  its  old-fashioned 
way  of  living ;  the  innate  democracy  of  the  Ameri- 
can plan  hotel  and  dinner-in-the-middle-of-the- 
day. 

Never  can  I  ride  up  through  it  in  these  fine 
basking  days  of  peace  and  of  prosperity  over  its 
well-maintained  railroad  without  thinking  of  the 
days  when  journeying  into  the  North  Country  was 
not  a  comfortable  matter  of  Pullman  cars  and 
swift  trains  by  day  and  by  night;  of  the  days 
when  one  came  to  Utica  by  stage  or  by  canal  and 
immediately  reembarked  upon  another  stage  for 
an  even  hundred  miles  of  rackingly  hard  riding 
over  an  uneven  plank-road  into  Watertown.  If 
one  went  further  toward  the  North,  travel  condi- 
tions became  still  worse.  Such  expeditions  were 
not  for  tender  folk. 


262  The  Story  of  the  Rome,  Watertown 

And  sometimes  to-day  when  I  ride  north  from 
Watertown  upon  the  railroad — and  the  cars  toil 
laboriously  through  Factory  Street,  as  they  have 
been  toiling  for  sixty-five  long  years  past — I  press 
my  face  against  the  window  and  look  for  a  little 
house  upon  that  Appian  Way ;  the  little,  old,  stone 
house  in  which  Clarke  Rice  and  William  Smith 
were  wont,  so  long  ago,  to  operate  their  toy  train 
upon  the  table  and  so  try  to  induce  the  folk  of  the 
village  to  invest  their  money  in  a  scheme  which 
then  seemed  so  utter  chimerical.  A  house  in 
which  a  real  idea  was  born  forever  fascinates  me. 
For  it  I  hold  naught  by  sympathy — and  under- 
standing. So  many  of  us  are  dreamers  .  .  .  And 
so  few  of  us  may  ever  live  to  see  the  full  fruition 
of  our  dreams. 


APPENDIX  A 

(Being  taken  bodily  from  a  poster  issued  at  Watertown 
in  the  Summer  of  1847.) 

WATERTOWN, 

ROME,    AND    CAPE-VINCENT 
RAIL-ROAD 


ACCORDING  TO  NOTICE  IN  THE  JEFFERSON  COUNTY 
PAPERS,  the  inhabitants  of  this  Town  will  be  speedily  called 
on  to  complete  subscriptions  towards  the  above  named  Road, 
sufficient  to  warrant  a  commencement. 

BY  THE  CHARTER  WE  HAVE  TILL  THE  14TH  OF  MAY, 
1848,  to  complete  subscriptions,  and  make  an  expenditure  to- 
wards the  Road. 

THE  TIME  IS  SHORT  IN  WHICH  TO  DO  THIS  BUSINESS; 
therefore  it  is  highly  important  that  every  citizen,  from  the  St. 
Lawrence  on  the  North  to  the  Erie  canal  on  the  South — from  the 
highlands  on  the  East  to  the  lake  on  the  West,  come  forward 
and  spread  himself  to  his  full  extent  for  the  Road. 

TO  STIMULATE  US  TO  ACTION  LET  IT  BE  BORNE  IN 
MIND  that  the  sun  never  shone  on  so  glorious  a  land  as  lies 
within  the  bounds  above  described.  To  one  who  for  the  first 
time  visits  our  towns,  the  scene  is  enchanting  in  the  extreme. 
Our  climate  is  bland  and  salubrious;  winters  more  mild  than  in 
any  part  of  New  England  or  southern  New  York — the  atmos- 
phere being  softened  by  the  prevalence  of  southwesterly  winds 
coursing  up  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi  and  along  the  waters 
of  Erie  and  Ontario,  to  such  degree  that  for  salubrity  and  com- 
fort we  stand  almost  unrivalled. 

263 


264  Appendix  A 


WHEAT,  CORN,  BARLEY,  OATS,  PEASE,  BEANS,  BUCK- 
WHEAT, fruit,  butter,  cheese,  pork,  beef,  horses,  sheep,  cattle, 
minerals,  lumber,  etc.,  are  produced  here  with  a  facility  that 
warrants  the  hand  of  labor  a  bountiful  return. 

\VE  HAVE  WATER  POWER  ENOUGH  TO  TURN  EVERY 
SPINDLE  in  Great  Britain  and  America.  In  fact  we  have  every 
thing  man  could  desire  on  this  globe,  except  a  cheap  and  ex- 
peditious method  of  getting  rid  of  our  surplus  products  and 
holding  communication  with  the  exterior  world. 

THE  WANT  OF  THIS,  PLACES  US  THIRTY  YEARS  BEHIND 
almost  every  other  portion  of  the  State.  When  we  might  be 
first,  we  suffer  ourselves  to  be  last. 

CITIZENS!  HOW  LONG  IS  THIS  STATE  OF  THINGS  TO 
ENDURE?  After  having  lain  dormant  until  we  have  acquired 
the  dimensions  of  a  young  giant,  will  we,  like  the  brute  beast, 
ignorant  of  his  powers,  be  still  led  captive  in  the  train  of  our 
country's  prosperity — affording,  by  our  supineness,  a  foil  to  set 
off  the  triumphs  of  our  more  enterprising  brethren  of  the  East, 
the  South,  and  the  West? 

NO,— FROM  THIS  MOMENT  FORWTARD,  LET  US  RESOLVE 
to  cut  a  passage  to  the  marts  of  the  New  World,  and,  by  the 
abundance  of  our  resources,  strike  their  "Merchant  Princes"  with 
admiration  and  astonishment. 

THIS  CAN  EASILY  BE  DONE  IF  UNANIMITY,  PERSEVER- 
ANCE, and,  above  all,  LIBERALITY,  be  exhibited.  If  every 
farmer  owning  100  acres  of  land,  and  he  not  much  in  debt,  will 
take  five  shares  in  the  Road,  and  others  in  proportion,  the  de- 
cree will  go  forth  that  the  work  is  done.  Without  this,  it  is 
feared  the  whole  must  be  a  failure. 

VIEWED  IN  AN  ENLIGHTENED  MANNER,  THERE  NEED 
BE  NO  hesitation  on  the  part  of  the  owners  of  the  soil.  They 
are  the  ones  to  be  most  essentially  benefited.  There  is  no  rea- 
son why  their  lands,  from  having  a  market  and  increased  price 


Appendix  A  265 


of  products,  would  not  be  worth  fifty  to  eighty  dollars  per  acre, 
as  is  the  case  in  less  favored  sections,  where  Rail  Roads  have 
been  constructed.  The  very  fact  that  a  Road  was  to  be  made 
would  add  half  to  the  value  of  land — its  completion  would  more 
than  double  the  present  prices. 

A  TAX  ON  THE  LAND  TEN  MILES  EACH  SIDE  OF  THE 
ROAD,  to  build  it,  would  in  three  years  repay  itself,  and  leave 
to  the  present  population  and  their  posterity  an  enduring  source 
of  wealth  and  importance.  We  lose  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars annually  in  the  price  of  butter  and  cheese  alone,  when  com- 
pared with  the  prices  obtained  by  Lewis  and  the  northerly  part 
of  Oneida,  simply  because  they  are  nearer  the  Canal  and  the 
Rail  Road. 

BUT  TAKING  STOCK  IS  NOT  A  TAX,  IN  ANY  SENSE  OF 
THE  phrase.  It  is  only  resolving  to  purchase  a  certain  amount 
of  property  in  the  Road,  which,  taking  similar  investments  else- 
where as  a  sample,  will  pay  interest,  or  can  be  at  all  times  sold 
at  par,  or  at  an  advance,  like  other  property  or  evidence  of 
value.  The  owner  of  shares  can  at  any  time  sell  out,  and  have 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  has  greatly  added  to  his 
wealth  merely  by  affording  countenance  to  the  project  while  in 
embryo. 

THE  DIRECTORS  ARE  POWERLESS  UNLESS  THE  PEOPLE 
RALLY  to  their  aid.  They  have  made  efforts  abroad  for  capi- 
tal to  build  the  Road,  by  adding  to  the  subscriptions  on  hand 
at  the  time  they  were  chosen.  Owing  to  causes  not  prejudicial 
to  the  character  of  our  enterprise,  they  have  not  for  the  present 
succeeded.  Aid  they  have  been  promised,  but  they  are  enjoined 
first  to  show  a  larger  figure  at  home.  The  ability  and  disposi- 
tion of  our  population  must  be  more  thoroughly  evinced  than  has 
yet  been  the  case. 

AGENTS  ARE  AT  WORK,  OR  SPEEDILY  WILL  BE,  ON  THE 
whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  line  from  Cape  Vincent  to 
Rome.  A  searching  operation  is  to  be  had.  If  the  Road  is  a 


266  Appendix  A 

failure,  the  Directors  are  determined  that  it  shall  not  be  laid  at 
their  door.  Let  this  be  remembered,  and  every  one  hereafter  hold 
his  peace. 

CLARKE  RICE, 

Secretary  W.  &  R.  R.  R.  Co. 
Watertown,  Aug.  27,  1847. 


APPENDIX  B 

A  LIST  OF  THE  OFFICERS  AND  AGENTS 

OF  THE 

ROME,  WATEETOWN  &  OGDENSBUBGH  RAILBOAD 
(March  22,  1886) 

President,  CHARLES  PARSONS,  New  York 
Vice-President,  CLARENCE  S.  DAY,  New  York 
Secretary  and  Treasurer,  J.  A.  LAWYER,  New  York 
General  Manager,  H.  M.  BRITTON,  Oswego 
8upt.  of  Transportation,  W.  W.  CURRIER,  Oswego 
Gen'l  Freight  Agent,  E.  M.  MOORE,  Oswego 
Gen'l  Pass.  Agt.   (Acting),  G.  C.  GRIDLEY,  Oswego 
Gen'l  Baggage  Agent,  T.  M.  PETTY,  Oswego 
Gen'l  Road  Master,  H.  A.  SMITH,  Oswego 
Supt.  of  Motive  Power,  GEO.  H.  HASELTON,  Oswego 

Assistant  Superintendents 

W.  H.  Chauncey,  Oswego          J.  D.  Remington,  Watertown 
W.  S.  Jones,  DeKalb  Junction 

Agents 

Suspension  Bridge,  Lyndonville,  B.  A.  Barry 

G.  G.  Chauncey      Carlyon,  T.  A.  Newnham 
River  View,  J.  B.  S.  Colt  Waterport,  A.  J.  Joslin 

Lewiston,  Samuel  Barton  Carlton,  O.  Wiltse 

Ransonville,  D.  C.  Hitchcock          East  Carlton,  J.  C.  Wilson 
Wilson,  G.  Wadsworth  Kendall,  J.  W.  Simkins 

Newfane,  F.  S.  Coates  East  Kendall,  George  L.  Lovejoy 

Hess  Road,  C.  Sheehan  Hamlin,  C.  S.  Snook 

Somerset,  Thomas  Malloy  East  Hamlin,  D.  W.  Dorgan 

County  Line,  G.  Resseguie  Parma,  L.  V.  Byer 

267 


268 


Appendix  B 


Greece,  W.  E.  Vrooman 
Charlotte,  H.  N.  Woods 
Pierces,  Chas.  Ten  Broeck 
Webster,  F.  E.  Sadler 
Union  Hill,  C.  B.  Hart 
Lakeside,  I.  H.  Middleton 
Ontario,  George  M.  Sabin 
Williamson,  J.  E.  Tufts 
Sodus,  J.  P.  Canfield 
Wallington,  E.  T.  Boyd 
Alton,  H.  S.  Mclntyre 
Rose,  A.  A.  Stearns 
Wolcott,  W.  V.  Bidwell 
Red  Creek,  S.  G.  Murray 
Sterling,  W.  A.  Spear 
Sterling  Valley,  W.  R.  Crockett 
Hannibal,  A.  D.  Cowles 
Furniss,  G.  Hollenbeck 
Oswego,  F.  W.  Parsons 

"    Ticket  Agent,  T.  M.  Petty 
East  Oswego,  F.  W.  Parsons 
Scriba,  R.  M.  Russell 
New  Haven,  E.  W.  Robinson 
Mexico,  R.  E.  Barren 
Sand  Hill,  W.  K.  Mathewson 
Pulaski,  W.  H.  Austin 
Richland,  T.  Higham 
Holmesville,  C.  L.  Goodrich 
Union  Square,  F.  A.  Nicholson 
Parish,  C.  J.  Lawton 
Mallory,  R.  E.  Brown 
Central  Square,  J.  P.  Tracey 
Brewerton,  C.  R.  Rogers 
Clay,  Wilber  Hatch 
Woodard,  A.  J.  Eaton 
Liverpool,  F.  Wyker 


Syracuse,  M.  Breen 

"   Ticket  Agent,  Jennie  Kellar 
Fulton,  F.  E.  Sutherland 
Phoenix,  0.  C.  Breed 
Rome,  J.  Graves 

"       Ticket  Agent,  A.  G.  Roof 
Taberg,  S.  A.  Cutler 
McConnellsville,  G.  Gibbons 
Camden,  H.  A.  Case 
W7est  Camden,  D.  D.  Spear 
Williamstown,  E.  B.  Acker 
Kasoag,  J.  A.  Frost 
Albion,  J.  Buckley 
Sandy  Creek,  W.  J.  Stevens 
Mannsville,  J.  G.  Clark 
Pierrepont  Manor, 

L.  V.  Evans,  Jr. 
Adams,  D.  Fish 
Adams  Centre,  W.  H.  Mclntyre 
Rices,  Miss  L.  A.  Ayers 
Watertown,  R.  E.  Smiley 

"    Ticket  Agent,  Pitt  Adams 
Sanfords  Corners,  M.  H.  Matty 
Evans  Mills,  F.  E.  Croissant 
Philadelphia,  C.  T.  Barr 
Antwerp,  Geo.  H.  Haywood 
Keenes,  W.  E.  Giffin 
Gouverneur,  A.  F.  Coates 
Richville,  W.  D.  Hurley 
DeKalb  Junction,  E.  G.  Webb 
Canton,  J.  H.  Bixby 
Potsdam,  J.  O'Sullivan 
Norwood,  M.  R.  Stanton 
Rensselaer  Falls,  A.  Walker 
Heuvelton,  H.  B.  Whittemore 
Ogdensburgh,  E.  Dillingham 


Appendix  B  269 


Brownville,  G.  C.  Whittemore          Three  Mile  Bay,  A.  H.  Dewey 
Limerick,  F.  E.  Rundell  Rosiere,  Joseph  Burgess 

Chaumont,  W.  A.  Casler  Cape  Vincent,  I.  A.  Whittemore 

Superintendent  of  Motive  Power,  GEO.  H.  HASELTON,  Oswego 

In  Charge  of  Repairs 
Syracuse,  John  Knapp  Watertown,  B.  F.  Batchelder 

Rome,  W.  D.  Watson 
General  Road  Master,  H.  A.  SMITH,  Oswego 

Division  Road  Masters 

Suspension  Bridge,  Geo.  Keith          Syracuse,  S.  Littlefield 

Oswego,  S.  Bishop  Rome,  A.  M.  Hollenbeck 

E.  Dennison,  DcKalb  Junction 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
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WILL  INCREASE  TO  5O  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


Ml  T,C}  1936 

JUN   7196744 

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LD  21-100m-8,'34 

5TUO 


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